‘the Most Trusted Man in America’
“Any war is madness. What is going on in Iraq is a crazy war, I think we should have got out of there a long time ago!” Said Walter Cronkite on his annual visit to ASU campus on Monday, November 13. “It’s not too late…get out now for Heaven’s sake. Save American Lives,” he urged. (note ‘American’)
In the brightly lit Carson Ballroom in the Old Main of ASU Tempe Campus, the air was rife with excitement as young journalism students waited to interact with Cronkite. Christopher Callahan, Dean Walter Cronkite School of Journalism introduced the famous television anchorman to students. Cronkite said that he was happy to see the fourth estate of years to come assembled together.
In the Q & A session that followed with ‘the most trusted man of America’, students asked Cronkite questions about topics such diverse as the Iraq war, the recent congressional election, America’s space program coverage and career choices of women in the media. One student wished him a belated happy 90th birthday, which was on November 4.
In the course of answering questions, Cronkite said that he believed that Democrats would take a much different approach to policy issues, national and international, and contribute to a healthy American political and socio-economic system. “This will clean up the dirty air”, he added.
He sounded hopeful of the future of American media, he said it was in ‘pretty good shape.’ When requested to comment on the fact that over ninety percent of the media is owned by five corporations, he countered by asking the student if she was criticizing capitalism. “I am a capitalist”, he said. “I hate to see public ownership of media.”
To the question whether the media’s coverage of NASA Space Programs has dwindled, Cronkite said that this could be because no new explorations have taken place except satellites and shuttles that routinely bring back pictures. He said that it was foolish to send an expedition to Mars because of the enormous costs involved.
His advice to future journalists is to maintain ‘accuracy, honesty, and fairness’ while reporting. He said that developing the capacity to report news was more important than learning the various technical aspects of journalism.
“I am surprised and happy to see the amount of women in broadcast journalism today”, he said. “I won’t advice them any different than male prospective journalists, which is –do your best to be a good journalist. Sex is not a handicap anymore.”
He said that in terms of work, the ones that had the biggest personal impact were coverage of the Kennedy Assassination, and the Vietnam War.
There were lighter moments in the discussion when Cronkite remarked that in University of Texas at Austin, where he was a student, he made sure to take classes that started not earlier than 3 PM. He also remarked at the end of the session that he thought the questions asked were better than the answers.
He did flow off the tangent sometimes. Sam Salzwedel, a student of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism who asked Cronkite a question on war coverage and got a …well….’related’ reply said, “Anything Cronkite says is valuable.” This was the dominating note of the session, awe.
The Department of Journalism at ASU was named Walter Cronkite in 1984. Since then Cronkite has been to ASU every year to meet the students and faculty, supporting every journalism and leadership endeavor. I found him a really sweet old man, hard of hearing, with a refreshing sense of humor. At ninety, his mind works just as well as it did in all the glorious years behind him.
I am glad you noted the word “American”. With all due respect to this great journalist, I was wondering if he cares a thing about what would happen to Iraq if American troops pull out now.