Via his network, CBS:
The "most trusted man in America" is gone.
Walter Cronkite, who personified television journalism for more than a generation as anchor and managing editor of the "CBS Evening News," has died. CBS vice president Linda Mason says Cronkite died at 7:42 p.m. Friday with his family by his side at his
home in New York after a long illness. He was 92.
Known for his steady and straightforward delivery, his trim moustache, and his iconic sign-off line -"That’s the way it is" - Cronkite dominated the television news industry during one of the most volatile periods of American history. He broke the news of the Kennedy assassination, reported extensively on Vietnam and Civil Rights and
Watergate, and seemed to be the very embodiment of TV journalism.
I never saw Walter Cronkite deliver the evening news live - I'm too young. But I know who he is, and certainly understand what he did. Mr. Cronkite was the captain that led television to become the dominant medium of communication and infromation diffusion for the latter half of the 20th century. His legacy represents that which is most noble about the craft of journalism - integrity, trust, and stubborn desire to bring the facts, the news, to the masses. He was the forerunner and pacesetter of the faces and names that held the anchorchairs of the "big three" networks of my youth - Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, and Tom Brokaw. But he was the original mold, and in the middle of this communication revolution it is only right to remember the man that created the televised news broadcast.
"And that's the way it is."
UPDATE: Ambinder weighs in. Thinking about where I get my news today and who I trust to give me the facts, this is kind of full-circle.
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