If Only Walter Cronkite Had Left His Integrity Behind

That's not the way it is -- not now, and not for a long time.

Remembering Walter Cronkite means recalling when there really was a media figure who was "the most trusted man in America." In moments of profound national tragedy and unparalleled triumph, the country turned its eyes toward Cronkite, who unfailingly delivered professionalism and integrity.

The greatest sorrow in marking Cronkite's death is the necessity of acknowledging that we have replaced his work ethic and wisdom with puffery and ideological pontification.

To watch the tapes of Cronkite's extraordinary coverage of John F. Kennedy's assassination -- not that final, teary moment when he removes his thick-rimmed glasses to announce that the young president is dead, but the bulletins leading inexorably up to it -- is to understand what broadcast news once was, and is no more.

Though it is apparent that the president likely had been killed, Cronkite never goes beyond the sparse facts as they were streaming into CBS News from wire services and then from reporters at the local affiliate in Dallas. Cronkite tells us that "first reports" are that the president has been "seriously wounded by this shooting." He says Kennedy had been taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital where his condition is "yet unknown."

We learn that two priests were called to the president's room and that "blood transfusions are being given to President Kennedy." After Eddie Barker of KRLD in Dallas reports that rumors are emanating from the hospital that Kennedy already had died, Cronkite notes that the account is "totally unconfirmed, apparently, as yet." And so it went, up until that moment when Cronkite soberly announced receipt of "the flash, apparently official," that Kennedy had died at 1 p.m., Central Standard Time.

The sequence is devoid of speculation, let alone the self-importance so central to cable television -- the contemporary equivalent of the news bulletin of 1963. Applying the standards of today, what, precisely, would an army of experts, academics, political "analysts," supposedly longtime family friends or others have speculated about on Nov. 22, 1963?

They could not have foretold that within a few years of JFK's assassination, the very boulevards of downtown Washington that provided the solemn backdrop for his funeral cortege would be ablaze with urban riots. No one could guess that Lyndon Johnson's assumption of the presidency would eventually lead to the tragic escalation of the Vietnam War and the rending of the nation into ideological camps -- divisions that foreshadowed the red state/blue state shouting match that dominates political discussion and too much media coverage today.

"When you talked to Walter, he would always want to accentuate the serious side, that news should not be personified. It's serious grist that makes democracy possible," says Craig Allen, an associate professor of journalism and author of books on broadcast news history, who worked alongside the retired anchor at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.

Though Cronkite in retirement repeatedly warned of the perils of a fragmented, ideological approach to news, his advice has been ignored by media figures -- and media consumers -- alike. During last year's presidential campaign, those who said they got most of their election news from television relied heavily on channels offering a partisan or ideological cast. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, more than a third of those who got election reports mainly from television watched the conservative-leaning Fox News (25 percent) or MSNBC (10 percent), which developed a clear left-leaning tilt.