by Robert Wright
I know I’m late to the Walter Cronkite reflections party, but since this is my first day of guest blogging for Andrew, I haven’t had a microphone until now. I think one reason Cronkite looks so appealing compared to today’s anchors is that he got into TV news at a time when everyone who was getting into TV news had come from some other medium (both print and radio in Cronkite’s case). As a result: (a) they, and he, hadn’t been admitted to the journalistic profession on the basis of looks, and so didn’t have the oddly credibility-sapping attractiveness of some modern anchors; (b) having come from radio, Cronkite looked like a guy who was just un-self-consciously reading the news, as opposed to a guy doing a slightly oversized impersonation of someone reading the news. Of course, he had a quasi-captive audience–he was one of only three choices in the known universe (and the one always chosen in my household)–and that probably made it easier to feel secure in his authenticity. If you missed the Dish’s earlier post of Cronkite reporting—with refreshingly low melodrama and commensurately high gravitas–the assassination of Martin Luther King, it’s worth a look.
The Dish 