Walter Cronkite passed away Friday night. I never met him — and although he never knew it, he had a big impact on my life.
Growing up as a kid in Miami, our TV was tuned every weeknight to Walter and the CBS Evening News. Seeing him report on big stories from all over the nation and the globe was one of the reasons I decided to become a journalist.
Early on, I thought I was going to follow him into television. I decided that if I wanted to be as good as Cronkite, I needed to emulate his career path. In high school, I joined the newspaper — knowing Walter started as a print reporter. Turned out I loved print journalism more than broadcasting, and I never completed the journey that Cronkite did. But he always held a special place for me — representing the type of fair and aggressive journalist I always aspired to become.
I also think part of my fondness for Cronkite was personal — he looked a lot like my grandfather.
Central Florida was a special place for Cronkite, who was here many times reporting on various launches. In his 1996 autobiography, A Reporter’s Life, Cronkite shared some of his memories of covering the space program.
He talked about how for some of the early launches at the Cape, the CBS News space "bureau" was really just the backseat of a station wagon.
Later, as the Apollo program came to life, Cronkite recalled an early launch of the Saturn V. As the countdown ended and the rocket’s mammoth engines ignited, the power of the thrust started shaking the new CBS News studio at KSC. Worried that a big window behind his anchor desk might shatter, Cronkite jumped up and braced his hands against the glass to try to minimize the rattling. After his crew congratulated him for his quick thinking, he got a call from the studio architect who told Walter that he was lucky to be alive. The window was supposed to rattle to absorb the rocket launch vibrations — by putting his hands on it to stop the movement, Cronkite could have caused the glass to shatter and could have killed himself in front of millions of viewers. That would have been breaking news.
As I’m writing this, I just remembered another Cronkite story — a personal one. For the last Apollo moon mission, it was a nighttime launch. I think I was about 7 or 8 at the time, and I was sitting along the Indian River in Titusville, waiting for liftoff. The launch was delayed for several hours, and I don’t think it happened until well after midnight. Sitting on the seawall with a cousin, we entertained ourselves during the countdown hold by doing our own launch play-by-play — me, of course, imitating Cronkite with his distinctive voice. I think our broadcast may have gone on as long as Cronkite’s. I can’t recall what I — or Walter — said that night, but I bet we were equally as excited when the big rocket finally blasted off for the moon.
Godspeed, Walter.
Here’s CBS News’ special report announcing Cronkite’s death.
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