Walter Cronkite, the voice of TV news is dead. Thus, screamed New York Times’ lead headline, Saturday morning. It was one of those moments. When you know that the world will be worse off. When you know that an institution had passed away.
When I came to work that afternoon, I asked around in the newsroom on how many people knew of a man named Walter Cronkite. Sadly, but as expected, not many did. A man, who for an entire generation was the only source of news, was today an unknown entity for the Youtube generation.
Yet Cronkite is as relevant today as ever before. In these times of shrill, high pitched reporting and opinionators masquerading as news anchors, Cronkite is the man to turn to. He was the man who America turned to every evening to know what was happening in the world around them. And this relationship between Cronkite and America was built on one fundamental quality. Trust.
No wonder, in 1995, 14 years after he retired from the Evening News, Walter Cronkite was America’s most trusted man. More than even President Clinton, who at that time was at the peak of his powers.
He became something of a national institution. Cronkite’s presence was reassuring. America trusted him with the news, whether good or bad. And for his part Cronkite too stuck to the news. He didn’t need to pilfer news with his own opinion or spiel to make it sound ‘sexy’. He told the news, just the way it was.
“I am a news presenter, a news broadcaster, an anchorman, a managing editor — not a commentator or analyst,” he said in an interview with The Christian Science Monitor. “I feel no compulsion to be a pundit.” He rarely pronounced judgment.
News TV, both in the States and here in India has a lot to learn from Uncle Walter. News television today has been reduced to slam-bang talkathons. It’s so darn predictable. If it’s a political issue, get a Congress guy and a BJP guy. Get both of them to have a go at each other. In between, anchors evangelize their two bits.
And there’s a very simple reason why news TV has been reduced to this dirty theatre. Talk is cheap and talk sells. Talk is also entertaining and lazy. Therefore, there’s so much talk in the news. Anchoring in news TV has been reduced to hectoring and finger-wagging. And often times, I myself, have been guilty of this.
And so as I mourn the loss of such an invaluable soul, let me also solemnly reaffirm my pledge to all that Walter Cronkite stood for. Fairness, objectivity and the pursuit of truth. And that’s the way it is.
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