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

A Pinch of This and A Dash of That

Image
I recently made a few Raspberry Pies following my grandmother's recipe that is included in a cookbook featuring her recipes. It was put together by her oldest daughter. One of six daughters. I love using her recipes. They are quite simple. Basic. Born out of an era of raising a family on a farm where meals were homemade, and work and chores were nonstop and produce came from the garden, some of that produce eventually canned or stored in a root cellar. In a few of my grandmother's recipes, her instructions include words such as a pinch, a dash, a sprinkle or a hint as ways of measurement of certain ingredients. In the Raspberry Pie recipe, her instruction was to add a pinch of salt. Before, when coming upon that particular instruction, I would put a little bit of salt in a bowl or on a plate and take a pinch of it. Then add the pinch to the other ingredients. But this time I was curious. For whatever the reason, I asked Mr. Google what the instruction for a Pinch of an ingredie
Read more

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 student
Read more

Oh Those Netted Crinolines

Image
I hardly ever wore crinolines under my skirts way back when wearing crinolines underneath skirts was the fad. Not participating in a fad was unusual for me. After all, I ran to a department store located in the downtown of where I lived  the moment Sonny and Cher's "I Got You Babe" grabbed my attention. I had to have bellbottoms and short-sleeved ribbed sweaters. I had to grow my hair down to my waist. But crinolines were a different story. I didn't like all of that netting. I didn't like my skirts pushed way out in front of me even when most of my friends wore crinolines all the time.  However, there are most always exceptions to most anything-even when it comes to wearing crinolines if crinolines aren't your thing. For me, that exception  came when my grandmother made me a velvet green dress to wear to a Christmas party. It was going to be held in a grand old hotel in that downtown where I lived. My date was a Freshman at a nearby college. He was so cute. We
Read more