Walter Cronkite: I'd have called Florida, too

By Ruth O'Brien
Special to the Freedom Forum Online

12.08.00

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Walter Cronkite

NEW YORK — Had Walter Cronkite been in the anchor seat on election night this year, he wouldn't have done anything differently than other network anchors, "including the calling of Florida," he said last night.

"If the decision desk at CBS said call it, we'd have called it," the retired CBS anchorman said. "I might have had some doubts about it. As a matter of fact, the only smart thing I said all evening to my friends [was] when they called (Vice President Al) Gore, I said, "Don't believe it.'"

The man known for half a century as America's "most trusted person" — also called "Uncle Walter" — admitted that he had watched the election returns "jealously" because he always liked "to be in on the big stories — that hasn't changed."

Cronkite still values the exit poll, he said, calling it "a wonderful idea."

"I certainly hope we don't desert the exit polls because of one miscall out of 50 this particular year," he added.

Cronkite was interviewed by Freedom Forum President Peter S. Prichard during "Fifty Years, Fifty Moments," a special CBS-Freedom Forum joint tribute to him at the First Amendment Center. The evening's high-powered attendees included CBS News executives past and present (Howard Stringer, Don Hewitt), CBS News star reporters and commentators (Mike Wallace, Andy Rooney, Morley Safer and later, straight from his anchor desk, Dan Rather), Freedom Forum Founder Al Neuharth and the foundation's chairman and CEO, Charles L. Overby.

The evening highlighted Cronkite's own favorite moments of his 50 years at CBS News. Andrew Heyward, president of CBS, began the evening by saying, "Walter Cronkite's career, 50 years in television, doesn't just span the entire history of television news — in many ways it defines it."

"No one ever has and no one ever will equal the contribution and the significance that Walter Cronkite has had, not just in television news but really in American culture," Heyward said.

He noted that one of Cronkite's contributions to American culture is the phrase, "That's the way it is," which was how he always closed his nightly broadcast. "If you think about [that] closing phrase," Heyward said, "coming from anybody else, that would be kind of presumptuous. When Walter Cronkite says 'That's the way it is,' it's kind of redundant."

Heyward called Cronkite "an American treasure," noting that his work was "so astonishingly impressive and varied, and all of it [was] fueled by the passion for news and the passion for a great story and the passion for American history and how it affects ordinary people."

Cronkite's passion is still evident at age 81.

"Those early days of television had to be about as exciting an assignment as anybody could ever have," he said after sharing a film of clips of his favorite stories throughout his career.

But he easily admitted his favorite story by far was covering the moon landing.

"[That] would have to be it. I'd go [into space] today ... but if I went today on the shuttle, I would see the glass as half empty rather than half full because I wouldn't be going to the moon. That is the flight I'd like to make — can you imagine walking on the surface of the moon, can you imagine seeing the Earth rise?"

Cronkite was interrupted in his reminiscences by a phone call from President Clinton, or so much of the audience believed until Cronkite closed the conversation with, "Thank you, Mr. President, and give my best regards to Hillary and Monica."

Did being called America's most trusted person ever bother Cronkite?

"Well, fortunately they didn't poll my wife," he replied.

"That was a most unusual situation, of course," he added. "I can kind of see how it happened. They were selecting between various occupations — Supreme Court justices, congressmen, mayors, governors, lawyers, doctors — and obviously if you take that group, why ... I could come out pretty well."

"You can't take that kind of thing seriously. People asked how it changed my behavior on the air ... it couldn't change it because all of us were trying to do the most trustworthy job we [could]. That's the ethics of our profession; good journalists pursue those ethical standards. And so once somebody says in a poll you're the most trusted person, what do you do? You just keep on doing what you were doing to be trustworthy."

Though he didn't elaborate on the characteristics he thinks make him appear trustworthy to most Americans, Cronkite had a simple standard for judging world leaders.

"I have one basic criterion on which I judge politicians, government leaders, and that is on the matter of personal and political courage; do they have courage?" he said.

By that standard, he added, the politician he most respected was Anwar Sadat, the president of Egypt who was assassinated.

"[Sadat] had both political and personal courage to recognize Israel, to go to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and to make peace with Israel, the first Arab leader to do so. I think indeed it cost him his life, as he probably knew it would ... but this is political courage and personal courage up to the hilt," he said.

And the leader he respected least?

"I didn't care much for Hitler," he immediately replied, to a huge round of laughter.

After much reminiscing, Cronkite turned his attention to the current news situation, its shortcomings and potential solutions.

"I'm very pleased with [cable news]. I think it's a great asset, a wonderful thing for us to have. I use it all the time," he said.

"I do think there's a problem with the 24-hour news that is inherent in the news, that nobody's going to fix, and that's that they are repeating over and over because new people are coming in all the time; they're updating every half hour ... this becomes burdensome after awhile. But I think they do a good job, I think it augments the evening news."

Cronkite called today's broadcast journalists "superb; they're better than they've ever been, better than they were in my day; they've had more practice, more experience."

But, he added, "The fault I find is in management. Today we have the mega-mergers, the mega-ownerships, and these people are solely in business for profit. As such, [news departments] are directed to make higher ratings, greater profits, cut costs, and this is not the way to produce the best news broadcast. Their first objective should be serving the people."

"Wouldn't that be a glorious moment for journalism in America?" he added.

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