The death of Walter Cronkite is not only the end of a 92-year life, but the end of an era. As a USA Today reporter put it, “his loss feels like a death in the family.” Colleagues at NBC News dubbed him fittingly, “The Voice of America,” and he was.
I’m not going to bore you hear with his biography, because I am sure you have heard enough of that in the past few days. I just want to honor such a respected and beloved man. I have missed seeing every night on the news, and I will feel a whole in my life just knowing he is no longer here.
Walter Cronkite had bestowed on him the greatest honor one could ever image: he was named the Most Trusted Man in America at one time. People relied on him not only as television anchorman and reporter, but trusted that he was always telling us the Truth as he saw it from his place of high regard. He had a vantage point few of us will ever have the privilege to reach, and yet he remained one of us. There was no phoniness or pretense about him. He was as genuine as any man from the Middle of America could ever be.
We relished in and shared with him his excitement at a rocket launch, and we, like him, held our breath at the sight of a man walking on the moon. There was probably no bigger fan and supporter of the U.S. space program than Walter Cronkite. There were times when he was on-the-air that he was as excited about what was happening as a schoolboy.
We were also touched by his sorrow, and again like him, shed a tear at the announcement of the death of President John Kennedy. We were as stunned as he was, and even though he was in a studio in New York, he felt the pain that all Americans did, and eloquently talked us through a very difficult time in America’s history.
People who would never meet him, and welcomed him into their living rooms every time he went on-the-air, felt they knew him well enough to call him Uncle Walt or Uncle Walter. He was a member of our families, and had he walked to the front door of any house in America, he would have been welcomed in, given the best seat in the house, and something good to eat. Then we would have sat down and listened to him tell us all about the world out there, that seemed like such a frightening place from our front porches, small towns and from our limited point-of-view.
We loved him, and he loved us. He felt it was his duty to be the best this new medium, television, had to offer. Accuracy, was ingrained in his being, as was warmth, friendliness and sense of responsibility to the viewer who tuned-in to hear and see him. There were other good options out there, but he knew he had to work just that much harder, be that much smarter and be better at what he did so well, so that viewers would stop in their busy lives and watch his news program.
Goodbye Uncle Walt. I will miss you. Even though you haven’t broadcast regularly since you retired, just knowing you’re no longer here with us will live a hole in the psyche of American culture. And that’s the way it is…
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