CBS News Kisses Itself With Special on Cronkite, The 'Steel of Integrity' (Unlike Rather?)

Photo of Tim Graham.

For a news division that prides itself on being hard-hitting, there's nothing less hard-hitting than a special where CBS News touts itself as the Historic Oasis of Truth and Fairness. That's coming again tonight with a special remembering Walter Cronkite on his 90th birthday. Most companies don't put their slobbery internal tributes up for a nation to watch, but CBS News keeps trying to live down Memogate and other embarrassments in partisan excess by playing up Cronkite. (To see a more critical look at Cronkite and his excesses, check out our Walter Cronkite Profile in Bias page.)

MRC's Justin McCarthy noticed a big promo segment on Friday's Early Show. The only honorees were Bill Clinton, George Clooney, Robin Williams and a slew of TV news buddies -- like Diane Sawyer cooing "I think he is the most wonderful combination of a certain steel of integrity but absolute humanity," and Katie Couric having a diva moment: "If I knew the answer to what made Walter Cronkite Walter Cronkite, I'd be running all three networks and every cable channel, too." The morning clip read like this: 

WALTER CRONKITE: I was assigned to take over the "CBS Evening News" in the spring of 1962. Good evening from the "Evening News" control center in New York. This is Walter Cronkite reporting.

MIKE WALLACE: You walk into that studio. You were walking into his office. And he was the managing editor. And he was the managing editor.

CRONKITE: I think it's too far down for that, you know what I mean? The United States told the communists --

GEORGE CLOONEY: I'm the son of a news man. And it's a huge part of my life. I grew up in a newsroom. I know Walter very well. It's fun to be around somebody who's actually been part of real historical events.

CRONKITE: Looks like a good sight.

CRONKITE: A witness to that violence said it seemed to be unprovoked on the part of the demonstrators.

CLOONEY: You know, the guy who held our hands through some of the biggest changes in our country's history.

CRONKITE: In Dallas, Texas --

BARBARA WALTERS: We didn't know whether John F. Kennedy who died. Walter was the one who told us.

CRONKITE: President Kennedy died at 1:00 P.M. Central Standard Time, 2:00 Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago.

DIANE SAWYER: I think he is the most wonderful combination of a certain steel of integrity but absolute humanity.

FORMER PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: To me, represents the best of the First Amendment, the best of the freedom of the press.

CRONKITE: At first it was called the Watergate caper --

KATIE COURIC: If I knew the answer to what made Walter Cronkite Walter Cronkite, I'd be running all three networks and every cable channel, too.

CHARLIE GIBSON: He understood how to translate things to the television medium.

CRONKITE: This is Walter Cronkite on the Greenland ice cap.

ROBIN WILLIAMS: Beyond the horizon lies the North pole. Nice to meet you. I hope we'll have a good day. Would you like a piece of fish? I didn't watch much television at all. But something I did watch was "20th Century with Walter Cronkite."

CRONKITE: This is our story. As the Prudential Insurance Company of America presents "The 20th Century."

WILLIAMS: It's a great voice coming from a great man. That's a great thing.

CRONKITE: And that's the way it is.

WILLIAMS: And that's the way it is.

CRONKITE: That's the way it is.

CRONKITE: And that's the way it is.

SMITH: In my house growing up, south of Chicago, we watched the local CBS News on WBBM and then we watched Walter Cronkite and then we could eat. And Mother use to have to back-time dinner in order, in order for us to have a meal. You talk about important --

HANNAH STORM: Did that have an impact on you?

SMITH: Huge. And I think also, talk about an important legacy, his obligation to tell the truth. Unimpeachable in that way.

STORM: I like what Don Hewitt said about him. He was the anchor, in such frightening times, he was the anchor, he was the man that calmed America down.

Dan Rather actually shows up to praise Cronkite in this schmooze-a-thon, but as you can see here, and as Tom Shales pointed out in The Washington Post, he's left out of the promotional materials. CBS won't show a gooey promotional film for a presidential nominee during a political party convention, but they'll put this gunk on for an hour. Think of this as a convention movie -- and skip it.

—Tim Graham is Director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center


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Cronkite is a treasonous left

Cronkite is a treasonous leftist piece of work...he couldn't spell integrity let alone stand for it.

Let them all blather on...and on...and on....as only the left knows how to do with their lying elite slap each on the back .... air kiss each other club.

....bet the ratings are just huge....

LOL

I can understand your not lik

I can understand your not liking Cronkite's "slant" on the news, but how exactly is he treasonous?

The Vietnam War.I am not play

The Vietnam War.

I am not playing with you today boa...someone else can.

Okey-doke. I was just curious

Okey-doke. I was just curious if you were being hyperbolic or if you actually think Walter Conkrite should be in prison.

Vietnam and Iraq

I have heard more than a few historians (and even some retired North Vietnamese officers) say that Cronkite misreported the war by telling everyone that the South was on the edge of falling, which it wasn't, in fact the opposite was true.

This led to the withdrawal of support for the war and the eventual betrayal of the South Vietnamese people and democracy and human rights, not to mention mass genocide across the region.

Its just like what the Dems are doing right now with Iraq.

I agree that his misreporting

I agree that his misreporting of the news concerning the war in Vietnam caused millions of people to be incarcerated, tortured, and murdered.  That he and his ilk have no remorse for their monsterous actions speak volumes of their original intentions.  He is a flaming socialist.  He, like his fellow travelers, thinks that what they did was justified if it humbled the United States. 

Sounds like a point up for de

Sounds like a point up for debate.

if it is it will never be on

if it is it will never be on the MSM

Supreme Court,  National Security,  Borders,  Fiscal Restraint, my litmus test for President.   

Must not be a worthwhile enou

Must not be a worthwhile enough venture.

doesn't fit the agendaSupreme

doesn't fit the agenda

Supreme Court,  National Security,  Borders,  Fiscal Restraint, my litmus test for President.   

Baldid you watch the indoctri

Bal

did you watch the indoctrine U video?  what did you think?

Supreme Court,  National Security,  Borders,  Fiscal Restraint, my litmus test for President.   

I watched the trailer.

I watched the trailer.

Did anyone else read Tim's he

Did anyone else read Tim's headline and think to themselves,

"More like kiss their own asses goodbye."

Heehee...

The Avatar

Avatar...I did..but you put i

Avatar...

I did..but you put it rather succinctly...lol!

yuk yuk yuklol.The Avatar

yuk yuk yuk

lol.

The Avatar

Kiss our butts goodbye

I respected Cronkite as an anchor.  I can appreciate that he waited til later in life to expose himself as the flaming bigoted liberal he is.

But it's been a long fall from Cronkite's "And that's the way it is" to Couric's "Did you consider castration at that point?"

How the mighty have fallen.

I'm proud to say I didn't wat

I'm proud to say I didn't watch.

Life support for CBS News

CBS News has been living off its "glorious" history for many years.  Rightly or wrongly, they had many of the giants of TV News in the 60's and 70's.  Then Rather became the anchor (after they forced Cronkite to retire because of age) and CBS began losing stature like a slow drip from a leaky faucet.  The only CBS reporters who are highly regarded today are the dinosaurs like Mike Wallace or Bob Schieffer.  Even they are mostly running on fumes, although Schieffer did help himself during his time as the anchor.

When you put the clowns in charge, don't be surprised if a circus breaks out.

Easy for me to assert, I know

Easy for me to assert, I know, but I truly believe we’d be horrified if we knew just how much bias was dumped on us in these so-called "golden years" of news.

Simply the stories that Cronkite was aware of, but decided we didn’t need to learn of, would be too numerous to count. Bias by ommission, my guess, was rampant.

Golden age of news? My a**.

Rochester, Minnesota: A Fem_Leftist City!

Thank God for competition (

Thank God for competition (and I wish the FCC hadn't existed back-then to stifle competition via regulatory delay -- a sad history nobody wants to think-about when defending the FCC's sorry-assed big-government existence!).
JMR