• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Walter Cronkite, Iconic Anchorman, Dies

Agnapostate

Banned
Joined
Sep 18, 2008
Messages
5,497
Reaction score
912
Location
Between Hollywood and Compton.
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Libertarian
Walter Cronkite, Iconic Anchorman, Dies - Media Decoder Blog - NYTimes.com

Walter Cronkite, an iconic CBS News journalist who defined the role of anchorman for a generation of television viewers, died Friday at the age of 92, his family said.

“My father, Walter Cronkite, died,” his son Chip said just before 8 p.m. Eastern. CBS interrupted prime time programming to show an obituary for the man who defined the network’s news division for decades. Read an obituary by Douglas Martin here.

Mr. Cronkite’s family said last month that he was seriously ill with cerebrovascular disease.

[...]

I searched and found nothing about the story here though it was reported more than an hour ago now and there's additional reports coming in from the AP. I guess it's here now.
 
Walter had a major impact on the way news is reported today when he went on the air during the Vietnam war and issued his opinion that the war was lost rather than reporting the news. Since then the personal opinion of the reporters have gotten to the point where almost every news story reported that is remotely connected to politics is slanted toward the liberal point of view.
Walter before that time and for a short time after was the quintessential reporter looked upto by those of us in media as and not just another pretty face on TV as news has become over the last 30 or so years.
Even though I personally felt he caused changes that were not for the better, he was he was there during some of the best and worst times in our Nations history, like the JFK, RFK, and Martin Luther King, assassinations, the firat American in Space flight with Allan Shepard, and the Moon landing of Apollo 11. He was a giant in the industry and I was happy to see him have a very long and happy retirement doing what he loved, with the woman he loved.
CBS Legend Walter Cronkite Dies - CBS Evening News - CBS News
 
Last edited:
I always enjoyed his style of reporting the news. Looking back on it I can't even pinpoint what it was that seemed to add credibility to his stories, but he always seem to make them interesting.

Godspeed Walter.
 
RIP Cronkite. He was a legend now matter how you felt about the guy.
 
A distinguished legend, and he lived a full, rich life. Finally, someone to remember without reservation.
 
Walter Cronkite was the standard that all others were measured against. He was a journalist before he became a TV anchor. He was a war correspondent during WW II when reporters wore an army uniform. I cannot recall an anchor before Mr. Cronkite and in my my there were't any even though there were. I will remember forever seeing the film of Walter Cronkite rearly losng it while reporting that Pres. Kennedy was assisinated. He kept his poltics out of his reporting virtually completely except the one time he said that we were not doing too well in Vietnam. It was true but I do wish he never said that.
Yet Walter Cnkite did thongs like the moon landing as an American and not really a reporter but we can forgive him for that.

He nailed the connection of Watergate to the Committee To Re-elect but thoughsad to hear it was the truth.

In our house it was only CBS for news and if Walter Cronkite didn't say it happnened it just did not happen - per my Dad.

He was another of the Greatest Generation.

He is reporting from heaven now and he will tell like it is so God and the guys better get used to it.
 
Last edited:
I remember my parents calling me into the living room to watch the moon landing. There was the newsman, Walter Cronkite, and as stoic as he was, you could read the emotions on his face, guarded fear, then relief, and finally, an elation that almost caused a tear.

He was the most trusted man in America because he never abused that trust.

RIP fellow Texan.
 
He was the last great Evening News Reporter than we will ever have. He reported the news, and only the news. He didn't throw around his political viewpoints. He didn't take sides, he just reported. He has been a legend for so many years. Any young journalist should look up to this man with reverence and awe. He should be held up as the standard when it comes to journalistic integrity.
 
I am so sad about it:

R.I.P. Walter
 
I grew up watching him.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uG7jjF6xuKM&feature=related"]YouTube - Cronkite Interview of JFK[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOa4sg2WOEQ"]YouTube - Walter Cronkite - On his "that's the way it is" signoff[/ame]
 
Last edited:
He was a defeatest piece of ****.
 
Stay classy, conservatives. :doh

Just calling it, "the way it is". Anybody, who would get on national TV, while our troops fighting and dieing on the battlefield, achieving a very hard won victory and say that there's no way to win the war, is a defeatest piece of ****.
 
Just calling it, "the way it is". Anybody, who would get on national TV, while our troops fighting and dieing on the battlefield, achieving a very hard won victory and say that there's no way to win the war, is a defeatest piece of ****.

Cronkite said the war had become "no better than a stalemate", which was true. The politicians (both left and right) wouldn't do the necessary things needed to win a real war.

If you were there and saw fellow Americans die by the hundreds to take a few mountaintops just to leave the next day to let the enemy regain control of them again, what would you call it?

And what was the victory objective? 50,000 troops were dead and the North Koreans were stronger than when then war had started. They had unlimited backing from China, so how many more dead would you say that little chunk of land in south Asia was worth?
 
Cronkite said the war had become "no better than a stalemate", which was true. The politicians (both left and right) wouldn't do the necessary things needed to win a real war.

If you were there and saw fellow Americans die by the hundreds to take a few mountaintops just to leave the next day to let the enemy regain control of them again, what would you call it?

And what was the victory objective? 50,000 troops were dead and the North Koreans were stronger than when then war had started. They had unlimited backing from China, so how many more dead would you say that little chunk of land in south Asia was worth?


You do know which war we're talking about, right? Well, anyway, you're wrong.

"What we still don't understand is why you Americans stopped the bombing of Hanoi. You had us on the ropes. If you had pressed us a little harder, just for another day or two, we were ready to surrender! It was the same at the battles of TET. You defeated us! We knew it, and we thought you knew it.

But we were elated to notice your media was definitely helping us. They were causing more disruption in America than we could in the battlefields. We were ready to surrender. You had won!" --General Vo Nguyen Giap, CIC People's Army of Vietnam.


The enemy was not stronger when we left. They were on the verge of surrender. It was assholes like Cronkite that screwed all that up.
 
Just calling it, "the way it is". Anybody, who would get on national TV, while our troops fighting and dieing on the battlefield, achieving a very hard won victory and say that there's no way to win the war, is a defeatest piece of ****.

The man spoke the truth, no-one listened.

Of course, he was wrong.
We just needed a few more troops (100,000,000)
A few more bombs (nuclear)
A new South Vietnam government (PolPot)
More time (a century )
More money (our entire treasury)
World cooperation :)rofl)
A few more Rush Limbaughs
 
The man spoke the truth, no-one listened.

Of course, he was wrong.
We just needed a few more troops (100,000,000)
A few more bombs (nuclear)
A new South Vietnam government (PolPot)
More time (a century )
More money (our entire treasury)
World cooperation :)rofl)
A few more Rush Limbaughs

apdst is right and you don't know the facts.
 
The man spoke the truth, no-one listened.

Of course, he was wrong.
We just needed a few more troops (100,000,000)
A few more bombs (nuclear)
A new South Vietnam government (PolPot)
More time (a century )
More money (our entire treasury)
World cooperation :)rofl)
A few more Rush Limbaughs

On what historical facts did you dream that up? I look forward to seeing them.
 
Cronkite said the war had become "no better than a stalemate", which was true. The politicians (both left and right) wouldn't do the necessary things needed to win a real war.

If you were there and saw fellow Americans die by the hundreds to take a few mountaintops just to leave the next day to let the enemy regain control of them again, what would you call it?

And what was the victory objective? 50,000 troops were dead and the North Koreans were stronger than when then war had started. They had unlimited backing from China, so how many more dead would you say that little chunk of land in south Asia was worth?

Joe, did you mean to state "North Vietnamese" ?
 
Stay classy, conservatives. :doh

You stay classy liberals.

:roll:

yay, its fun to ignore evidence to the contrary where numerous conservatives...even some of the most rabid ones...WERE being classy in this thread and instead focus on one that decides to act like a jerk and then act like a jerk yourself to try and use it to insult all conservatives. Very classy of you, I mean, the pure definition of class. [/roll]

He was a defeatest piece of ****.

Really, you're opinion was so great and important that you needed to come in here where people are paying their respects to just basically at like a jerk and crap up the thread. Sure, not everyones gotta have a good opinion of Cronkite, but you couldn't possibly allow people to have a thread to pay respects and start a new one attacking the man?

apdst is right and you don't know the facts.

Perhaps he is and perhaps the other guy doesn't know the facts, but doesn't change the fact that he acted rather classless in attempting to turn the thread into some kind of giant argument when almost everyone was simply trying to pay respects. You seem to feel the same way as apdst, but that didn't keep you from at least showing class and respecting that people were wanting to pay respects to the dead.
 
Just calling it, "the way it is". Anybody, who would get on national TV, while our troops fighting and dieing on the battlefield, achieving a very hard won victory and say that there's no way to win the war, is a defeatest piece of ****.

I shipped out to Vietnam a few months after Wlater Conkite made that remark and to be honest I knew hemade it as did many others who had where saill there or on he way over. Yet it did not negatively affect us. The reason being is that Cronkite amde an honest assessment of the war at that point in time and taking in the political, social, and military situation into consideration.

You call Cronkite a "defeatist" says more about the caller than about Cronkite. If one just knows a very very little bit about what the man Cronkite had done from WW II and up through hat point one would realize that Conkite is hardly a "defeatist".

What Cronkite did was tell us what we needed to hear and ot what we wanted to hear. To try and smear Cronkite for that remark is indeed folly at it's ihghest.

What Cronkite said in 1968 is vertually what McNamarra admitted to many years later.

We won the Vitenam War militarily while we were there.After we left ARVN lost it becasue ARVN AND THE vIETNAMESE goernment didn't havethe support of the Vietnamese people.

The basic tuth is that truth has no partisansip and unfortuately Walter Cronkite was telling the truth
 
Last edited:
Walter had a major impact on the way news is reported today when he went on the air during the Vietnam war and issued his opinion that the war was lost rather than reporting the news. Since then the personal opinion of the reporters have gotten to the point where almost every news story reported that is remotely connected to politics is slanted toward the liberal point of view.

Edward R. Murrow was the most influential in that regard, of course 'the liberal point of view' being anything to the left of the John Birch Society in most 'conservatives' minds; being opposed to the VN war was as much a 'conservative' political position as it gets, unless you support very liberal foreign policy objectives, and VN was the quintessential manifestation of Cold War Liberalism, supported by hawks like Truman, Hubert Humphrey, and LBJ.
 
You stay classy liberals.

:roll:

yay, its fun to ignore evidence to the contrary where numerous conservatives...even some of the most rabid ones...WERE being classy in this thread and instead focus on one that decides to act like a jerk and then act like a jerk yourself to try and use it to insult all conservatives. Very classy of you, I mean, the pure definition of class. [/roll]



Really, you're opinion was so great and important that you needed to come in here where people are paying their respects to just basically at like a jerk and crap up the thread. Sure, not everyones gotta have a good opinion of Cronkite, but you couldn't possibly allow people to have a thread to pay respects and start a new one attacking the man?



Perhaps he is and perhaps the other guy doesn't know the facts, but doesn't change the fact that he acted rather classless in attempting to turn the thread into some kind of giant argument when almost everyone was simply trying to pay respects. You seem to feel the same way as apdst, but that didn't keep you from at least showing class and respecting that people were wanting to pay respects to the dead.

I will agree with you and say that Joe should not have brought the partisan connection into the thread but in Joe defense ans as you pointed out for someone to crap on a thread that was intended to be a forum for showing respect for an American icon I can understand why Joe reacted that way. It was a very emeotional reaction by Joe as I percive it.
 
I shipped out to Vietnam a few months after Wlater Conkite made that remark and to be honest I knew hemade it as did many others who had where saill there or on he way over. Yet it did not negatively affect us. The reason being is that Cronkite amde an honest assessment of the war at that point in time and taking in the political, social, and military situation into consideration.

Obviously, asn uninformed opinion. An opinion that, as I proved, encouraged the enemy to keep fighting, costing no telling how many more American lives.

We won the Vitenam War militarily while we were there.After we left ARVN lost it becasue ARVN AND THE vIETNAMESE goernment didn't havethe support of the Vietnamese people.

You're wrong. The ARVN ran out of gasoline and ammo. They well had the support of the Vietnamese people. Remember all those people mobbing the aircraft leaving Tan Son Nhut Airbase? They weren't running after those planes because of their elation at the prospect of the Communist victory. How 'bout all those boat people who left Vietnam on rafts made of truck tires? You think they took that trip, because life under the Communists was so sweet and rosey?

The basic tuth is that truth has no partisansip and unfortuately Walter Cronkite was telling the truth

No, he wasn't and history has proven that. Try learning about the events you lived through, sometime.
 
Back
Top Bottom