Time for Walter Cronkite

Growing up, every evening of every week day at 6:15 I would join my father in front of the television to watch the 15-minute news cast featuring Walter Cronkite. We wouldn't be watching the news. It was always "time for Walter Cronkite." The picture was a bit fuzzy and always black and white yet that determined voice always came through the screen. It was a voice we grew to trust. It was the voice, as pictured in this post, of a newscaster struggling to tell his audience that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Every time I watch the video of that dreadful moment in our history narrated by a man we trusted I cry right along with him.

To think that networks were able to condense all the news into 15-minutes which had to include advertising is amazing when considering today's 24-hour news channels trying to blast the loudest as they all compete for our attention. Of course back then, today's constant in-your-face reporting did not exist. News stories were not sensationalized or repeated over and over again nor were there reporters on the scene, carrying their coverage to extremes, trying to beat other networks for ratings, trying to sway their audience by taking their reporting a bit too far. Back then there were no gimmicks for your attention. It was news. Reporters were not celebrities. They were hardcore news reporters digging and searching for the truth without emails and cell phones and computers. I miss that type of reporting. I am not impressed by women with tight dresses sitting on a sofa spewing innuendos or men sitting by their side doing the same. Give me a reporter who offers facts and not opinion. From that, I can form my own opinion.

I often wonder what Walter Cronkite would think of today's news conglomerates. I'm glad he doesn't know what has happened to the nightly news or most news. I loved watching those 15-minute news casts with my father. Right after dinner we'd turn the TV on and get ready. It always seemed so much longer that those 15-minutes. I think that was because Walter Cronkite was good at what he did. And that was reporting the news without bells and whistles.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Those Small Milk Cartons With Straws

Image
I can't remember what elementary grade I was in when taking a morning break to enjoy a small, sometimes cold and sometimes not so cold small container of whole milk with my classmates. The Milk Break was part of the daily schedule. I do remember how good it tasted. The milk didn't come in flavors. Not even chocolate. There was no fat free or calcium enriched or soybean milk. Just whole milk in individual cartons.  The cartons were either opened by the teacher and then the student put a straw into the milk or there was a sealed hole in the carton and either the student or teacher pushed a straw through the hole. Straws were not fancy or colored. They did not have brand names or licensed characters on them. They did not have loops, making it possible to watch the milk go around the loops as a student sucked on the straw. They did not come wrapped in cellophane attached to the carton.  Instead, the teacher would walk around each table full of students, stopping beside each studen...
Read more

National Sewing Month

Image
 IN RECOGNITION of SEPTEMBER BEING NATIONAL SEWING MONTH I have written extensively about my mother’s fabric shop which was attached to our home out in the country where I spent many a school evening ‘designing’ outfits instead of doing homework, especially math. When I was in my preteens my grandmother taught sewing on Saturday mornings during the winter in my mother's shop. That is where I learned about darts and inseams, marking, and pinning patterns and secrets on how to cut patterns out. While it took me forever to trim a pattern, pin it to the fabric, and cut it out, my grandmother did it in lightning speed. And when she was not the instructor, she would be in her home, in her sewing room sitting at her little black Singer sewing machine with a tape measure around her neck, pumping the foot pedal and turning out one beautifully sewn item after another. She had the eye for her artform and when you have the eye, creativity is the driving force. My mother also had the eye. She w...
Read more

A Kitten In the Old Barn

Image
 My son  Brian & I had been thinking about getting a kitten for the longest time but there was always a reason why we put it off. Truth is those reasons were just excuses. My excuses. The thought of bringing a kitten into our home exhausted me. I did not welcome the responsibility. Besides Brian wanting us to get a kitten, so did my two grandchildren, ages 11 and 14. I would keep telling them "Pretty soon." Then they would get busy, or I would get busy, and it never happened. Until this past week. Another summer was quickly passing by and soon, I told myself, they would not bother to ask about going for a kitten. They'd have more important things to do. And so, late one morning this past week, after telling Brian what I was up to, I picked those two grandchildren up. I said we were going to lunch and then maybe Alex Bay for the afternoon. After having our lunch, I told them I had to make a quick trip to Walmart. Once inside, I put a few things in my cart. Then I led ...
Read more