August 31
DINNER, NEWS AND WALTER DAY
Walter Cronkite started showing up in living rooms during the dinner hour, starting this night in 1963 as anchor of the CBS Evening News (a job he took over from Douglas Edwards on April 16, 1962). Previous to this night, CBS Evening News had been shown from 7:30-7:45 p.m. and 7:15-7:30 p.m.
A familiar face to TV audiences, Walter Cronkite had been the host of You Are There, a CBS Sunday night program that ran from 1953 through 1957. A CBS news correspondent, Walter Cronkite served as reporter, host, and anchorman as major events in history were reenacted. Those who were viewers of You Are There can probably still recite Walter’s closing lines: “What sort of a day was it? A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times ... and you were there.”
Seven days after You Are There ended, the sincere face and friendly, yet authoritative voice of Walter Cronkite showed up in our living rooms again. This time he was narrator and host of The 20th Century, a program that presented filmed reports of major events and personalities that had shaped modern history. In January of 1967, the show changed its name and format. The 21st Century looked into the future rather than the past. Walter Cronkite remained at the helm. This was double duty for the consummate journalist as he continued to anchor the CBS Evening News.
While Mr. Cronkite was busy narrating, and reporting and anchoring, he was also the moderator in 1951 for The Facts We Face (which became Open Hearing); for the interview show, Man of the Week (1952-53); of the quiz show, It’s News to Me in 1954; narrator of Air Power, a documentary series (1956-58); host of Pick the Winner, a series of political telecasts in 1952 and again in 1956; anchor of the 1960 presidential campaign conclusion, Presidential Countdown; the 1980 CBS wrap-up of political news, Campaign Countdown, and the CBS news analysis program, Eyewitness to History, from 1961 to 1962. Cronkite was also the anchor and chief correspondent for Universe, a CBS science magazine-type program, in the summers of 1980, 1981 and 1982.
His CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite won a multitude of Emmy Awards. Walter, himself, took home several individual Emmys for Outstanding Achievement Within Regularly Scheduled News Programs; specifically, for The Watergate Affair and Coverage of the Shooting of Governor Wallace in 1972-1973; and Solzhenitsyn, a CBS News Special in 1974. When the Emmy Awards were presented on September 9, 1979, Walter Cronkite received the coveted ATAS Governor’s Award.
Walter Cronkite, voted the ‘most trusted man in America’, left CBS Evening News on March 6, 1981. Throughout his retirement years, Cronkite continued to report special news events. On July 17, 2009, Walter Cronkite and news as we knew it died. “And that’s the way it is...”
Those Were the Days, the Today in History service from 440 International
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