We've lost a number of American cultural icons in the last week, and among all that sad news there are reports that legendary newsman Walter Cronkite is seriously ill. Most are familiar -- and should be -- with his biography, how he made his name as a reporter in World War II, served as UPI's Moscow correspondent and then moved on to CBS, eventually anchoring the evening news from 1962 to 1981. I came across this video of Cronkite broadcasting the news of President John F. Kennedy's death in 1963, only one year into his job as anchor.
What strikes me first is Cronkite's calm. You wouldn't blame a reporter for displaying some emotion while discussing a story so tragic and shocking, but then again, this is a man who landed in a glider on D-Day and reported on the Battle of the Bulge. But watch closely and observe how he's doing his job, working from his desk, taking information from other journalists around him, switching to live video from Dallas, coordinating reports from the CBS affiliate there and a young Dan Rather, on the scene as CBS' national correspondent, sorting out confirmed facts and unconfirmed rumors, giving people the information they needed during that dark hour. The whole experience reminded me of reading Andrew Sullivan's blog during the the past weeks of conflict and protest in Iran. While Andrew was certainly more excited than Cronkite -- Andrew's an opinion journalist, anyway, that's his bread and butter -- the activities were the same: Aggregating multiple reports, passing on relevant video, assessing rumors and confirming them, airing skepticism and bringing together news from varied outlets and perspectives. Throughout the debates over whether blogging is journalism or not, I've always stuck by the posture that content is king. True, the medium will always be an influence, but the ultimate judge is what information is provided. Seeing Cronkite and Sullivan performing very similar work reporting on a breaking crisis should reinforce that fact. Ultimately, good journalism is a pretty straightforward task. It's just not an easy one.
-- Tim Fernholz
