Rush Limbaugh jokes about being America’s Real Anchorman but that job once belonged to Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr.  From 1962  until 1981 Walter “uncle Walt” Cronkite worked the anchor desk at CBS earning the public poll title of “the most trusted man in America”.A CNN.COM article from June of 2012 describes Cronkite this way. --   “His wife once told Parade magazine that he looked, in a way, like your family dentist, which was not all that surprising since his father and his grandfather were dentists.

Yet Cronkite was picked in 1962 to anchor the "CBS Evening News," and for two of the most tumultuous decades in American history, he was the authoritative voice of news in America, the man who told viewers that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated, that men had walked on the moon and that the Vietnam War couldn't be won.”

http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/05/opinion/brinkley-walter-cronkite/

Tony Barson/WireImage
Tony Barson/WireImage
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Walter Cronkite was one of my early news guy role models.  I wanted to be like Walt.  I wanted to sign off with “and that’s the way it is”.

Walter Cronkite stepped down as anchor of The CBS Evening News after 19 years on this day in March of 1981. He was replaced by Dan Rather.

Decades later I cannot begin to tell you how low my opinion of national television news has sunk.  At first I was sad but now I’m angry.  I wonder what uncle Walt would say?

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