Friday night was supposed to be a normal evening - nothing exciting, nothing thrilling, just uneventful.
That all changed at 7:13 pm when Katie Couric reported, “It is my sad duty to tell you that our friend and colleague Walter Cronkite has died.”
I didn’t see the special report.
Instead, I got a text message alerting me of his death.
While his passing was not completely unexpected, it still caught me off guard and made me think back to all of the pivotal moments in his career and how those moments influenced not only myself, but also so many other journalists across America and the world.
Granted, I wasn’t even born when he retired, but I, like so many others in my generation have seen the broadcasts on of his most important reports and bulletins on the Internet and can recall my favorites.
The broadcast that really made me want to pursue journalism as a career has to be the CBS Evening News broadcast where Cronkite concluded that the Vietnam War was unwinnable.
It was that one report and his years of accurate reporting that made it okay for a newsperson to give an opinion so long as he or she had solid facts to back up their opinion.
Cronkite went to the warzone, got the facts and presented them as he saw them.
He did a courageous thing by coming out against the war.
He knew the facts and was able to draw a conclusion.
Other journalists might have said he lost his objectivity at that point, but I think, had he not made his opinion known it wouldn’t have made him a better journalist.
It would have made him a coward.
Another Cronkite career highlight that I admire has to be the years he spent right here in central Oklahoma.
There is no better inspiration to UCO students than Walter Cronkite’s work at WKY radio in Oklahoma City, where he worked as the first play-by-play announcer of the University of Oklahoma football team.
Sure, he might have only been the announcer for a year before he left for another job in Kansas City, but that year helped propel him to the big leagues.
His year in Oklahoma meant something, and all of us who are students here, whether or not you are journalism majors, should realize that our time spent here in Oklahoma is valuable, as well.
It is shaping us and taking us places we might have never thought possible.
Most people will not think back to the years Cronkite spent here in central Oklahoma.
Most people will remember his bigger moments like the announcement of the assassination of John F. Kennedy or his anchoring of the first man to walk on the moon.
Both were huge moments in American history, showing the worst and the best of America.
No matter the event, no matter the story, if it was important, Walter Cronkite was on the air to tell you what you needed to know.
While he is no longer with us, he will never be forgotten.
His example, much like Edward R. Murrow and Tim Russert, will serve as an example of how to not only be a journalist, but his example will show us how to do our jobs right.
Godspeed Walter.
Your example of exemplary reporting will live on in our hearts and minds and will not be soon forgotten.
Cronkite’s influence in Oklahoma
"And that’s the way it was..."
Published: Thursday, July 23, 2009
Updated: Thursday, July 23, 2009
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