“And That’s The Way It Is…”

When you discuss television journalism, there is a Holy Duality:  Cronkite and Murrow.  These two pre-eminent inventors of television journalism, right from the beginning, are the ones that set the standard for every other talking head to come.

Walter Leland Cronkite started as an ink-stained wretch doing news and sports reporting for a series of newspapers in the US Midwest, then moved to radio as a reporter, using Walter Wilcox as his on-air handle.  This would be in the 1935 to 1937 era of history. 

Cronkite joined United Press in 1937 and was a very distinguished reporter during the Second World War, covering Operation Market-Garden, the Battle of the Bulge and even the Nuremburg War Crimes trials.  He was an actual working reporter.

Television ‘news’ in the post-war era was not much more than re-writing the newspaper copy and fifteen minutes of a talking head reading it to the audience, interspersed with commercials, usually done by the news reader.  This changed as people figured out how to incorporate pictures in the new media, then sound, then reporters with microphones, asking questions.

To understand some of it, you need some backstory:

In the beginning there were no LiveEye satellite trucks or helicopters with downlinks, feeding shaky pictures of cops chasing someone in a wife-beater undershirt over fences and through back yards. There were no iReporters emailing cell phone video clips to a news organization.

In The Day, film was the medium.  Eastman 7240 (or 7245), single system 16 mm film in a CP or an Eclair mag.  The film from breaking stories came in either by the camera man, or shipped in an “onion bag” from far away.  The film was taken immediately to the lab and as soon as it came out, about an hour later, was edited on a Steenbeck (was it 21 or 27 frames for lip flap?) and rushed to the telecine to get to air.  Total time from story to air: About three hours.

In that three hours the reporter would actually write the story, check facts and make sure that things were accurate and fair.  Tape sped things up a bit, but there was still a lag from the story to air where the reporter could actually answer those pesky questions of who, what, when, where and why.

Moments of history communicated by Walter Cronkite?  The Kennedy Assassination, The Cuban Missile Crisis, The Viet Nam War, Apollo 11, Watergate, The Iran Hostage Crisis.  You name it from 1937 onwards, and Uncle Walter was probably there and reported on it.  Lyndon Johnson, after watching Cronkite comment on the futility of the war in Viet Nam, said “If we’ve lost Cronkite, we’ve lost the war.”

On February 14th 1980, Cronkite retired from CBS News, handing the reins over to that young punk from the Dallas-Kennedy Assassination coverage, Dan Rather.

In “retirement” he kept very busy, doing documentaries, voice-overs, writing, sailing and occasionally commenting on the state of the world.  A little slower of course, but still with measured, reasoned commentary in that voice that could only be Walter Cronkite. 

You could take any of his clips, even off the cuff casual remarks and transcribe them as a print story:  He spoke in complete sentences, likely a result of his years as a journalist, but also the result of having a brain that worked before the lips started moving, almost unheard of these days in our overwrought media landscape.

He passed away yesterday, having almost made it to the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, his historic clips making the rounds of the media again. 

There won’t be a three-hour memorial at the Staples Center, with Mariah Carey singing, as Cronkite was a reporter, not a circus act.  We won’t see Rev. Al Sharpton or Brooke Shields delivering their heartfelt commentary over his remains.  Perhaps just as well.  I would imagine Cronkite would rise from the dead and bust some heads if anyone suggested it. 

However, if you have a shred of respect for what real, fair, balanced, accurate reporting was and should now be, you’ll stop for a moment and reflect on Walter Cronkite gave to the world.  He gave us The Standard.     

And that’s the way it is.