A Reporter's Life - Hardcover

Cronkite, Walter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0394578791 ISBN 13: 9780394578798

Publisher: Knopf, 1996

Synopsis

He has been called the most trusted man in America. His 60-year-long journalistic career has spanned the Great Depression, several wars, and the extraordinary changes that have engulfed our nation over the last two-thirds of the 20th century. When Walter Cronkite advised his television audience in 1968 that the war in Vietnam could not be won, President Lyndon B. Johnson said: "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle America."

Now, at the age of eighty, Cronkite has written his life story--the personal and professional odyssey of the original "anchorman" for whom that very word was coined. As a witness to the crucial events of this century--first for the Houston Press, then for the United Press wire service, and finally for CBS in the fledgling medium of television--Cronkite set a standard for integrity, objectivity, enthusiasm, compassion, and insight that is difficult to surpass. He is an overflowing vessel of history, and a direct link with the people and places that have defined our nation and established its unique role in the world.

But Walter Cronkite is also the man who loved to drive race cars "for the same reason that others do exhibitionist, dangerous stunts. It sets us apart from the average man; puts us, in our own minds, on a level just a little above the chap who doesn't race." He is also the man whose "softheartedness knows no rational bounds" and who always had "great problems at the theater, tearing up at the slightest offense against animals and people, notably the very old or the very young." He is the man who could barely refrain from spitting on the defendants at the Nuremberg Trials, and who could barely announce President Kennedy's assassination over the air for the sobs in his throat.

Walter Cronkite helped launch the juggernaut of television, and tried to imbue it with his own respect for quality and ethics; but now he occupies a ringside seat during the decline of his profession and the ascent of the lowest common denominator. As he aptly observes, "They'd rewrite Exodus to include a car chase."

Still, the American people know the difference. They know that for decades they have had the privilege of getting their news from a gentleman of the highest caliber. And they will immensely enjoy A Reporter's Life.

About this title

About the Author

Walter Cronkite lives in New York City and on Martha's Vineyard.

From the Back Cover

From the age of six, when he went dashing down a hill to spread the news of President Harding's death through his Kansas City neighborhood, Walter Cronkite's vocation was unmistakable. Now, at the age of eighty, Cronkite has written his life story - the personal and professional odyssey of the original "anchorman", for whom that very word was coined. As a witness to the crucial events of this century - first for the Houston Press, then for the United Press wire service and finally for CBS in the fledgling medium of television - Cronkite has set a standard for integrity, objectivity, enthusiasm, compassion and in sight that would be difficult to surpass. He is an overflowing vessel of history, a direct link with the people and places that have defined our nation and established its unique role in the world.

Reviews

YA. A memoir by America's foremost TV journalist. He was not a "star" anchor; rather, his workday world included reporting from the trenches of World War II and Vietnam, covering the civil rights movement, the Apollo Space Program, political conventions, and chats with presidents. Since Cronkite experienced events firsthand for the rest of the country, Americans identified with him and trusted his assessment of them. His personal accounts of the newsworthy happenings of recent decades may intrigue students of history, but the book will hold the most appeal for those interested in journalism and the media.?Susan Abrams, R. E. Lee High School, Springfield, VA
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Written with wry, self-deprecating humor, Cronkite's memoir gives us the veteran TV newscaster at his most relaxed and ingratiating as he recounts dozens of his scoops: for example, tracking down and interviewing Takeo Yoshikawa, the Japanese spy who was strategic to the attack on Pearl Harbor, and Daniel Ellsberg when he was in hiding after stealing the Pentagon's secret Vietnam War plans (the Pentagon Papers). Tough-minded, Missouri-born Cronkite, who apprenticed on Houston papers, has been eyewitness to, or participant in, many of the century's momentous events. As United Press war correspondent, he covered D-Day, the Allied air war and the Nuremberg trial. He joined CBS as a Korean War correspondent, and as CBS Evening News anchor for almost two decades (he retired in 1981, pushed out, he says, by a new management more interested in infotainment than substance), he reported on the civil rights movement, NASA's first moon walk, the John Kennedy assassination, freedom struggles in South Africa. Peppered with personal encounters with presidents from FDR to Nixon, plus close-ups of Nazi Hermann Goring, Douglas MacArthur, Castro, Begin and many others, Cronkite's crisp narrative charts the metamorphosis of network television into the defining medium of American consciousness. He also lets loose brickbats on the contemporary scene, bemoaning the "ridiculously small" volume of television news and the superficial quality of political coverage ("The debates are a part of the unconscionable fraud that our political campaigns have become, and it is a wonder that the networks continue to cooperate in their presentation"). Photos not seen by PW. BOMC main selection. Available on cassette and CD from Random House Audio. (Dec.) FYI: On November 4, the date this review is appearing, Cronkite celebrates his 80th birthday.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In the 15 years since Cronkite retired from The CBS Evening News anchor desk, the print and electronic media have experienced unimaginable changes. Readers with fond memories of Uncle Walter's days at the helm will not be surprised that he has strong opinions about these changes, and he delivers them firmly but gracefully in the course of these reminiscences. Few '90s broadcasters have the time to develop a "voice" that listeners can recognize and identify within a paragraph or two: Cronkite was one of the last TV newspeople with both the editorial control and the journalistic skill to establish an ever-so-familiar style. Longtime fans will no doubt "hear" Cronkite telling them--in trademark Cronkite style, like a slightly formal conversation--about his midwestern childhood, marriage, and family and dozens of stories he's covered over a long, distinguished career. Cronkite's seen plenty in his nearly 80 years: from semirural Missouri and Kansas to Houston as a cub reporter, then to Europe during World War II and Moscow after the war, to various hotspots of the world as well as the halls of political and media power in Washington and New York. A Reporter's Life is generous (though never gossipy) with the details. A Book-of-the-Month Club main selection; expect requests. Mary Carroll

People who enjoyed watching Cronkite deliver the news on CBS television for many years are going to enjoy this good-natured memoir. In fact, this book will appeal to anyone who is interested in an inside view of television news operations and in stories of contacts with the movers and shakers of the world. The book is chock-full of lively stories of Cronkite's early years in newspapering and his move to radio and, quickly, to television during the Korean war. Cronkite covered many of the most important events of the past?political conventions, the Vietnam War, the moon landing, the assassination of President Kennedy. His account of his personal life, particularly his experiences driving race cars and his switch to sailing as a more family-oriented sport, will amuse readers. Cronkite ends his book with some sobering words about the effects of the infotainment that infects much television news. Television's twisted influence on our political process so worries him that he asserts, "The major problem is simply that television news is an inadequate substitute for a good newspaper." Recommended for public and academic libraries.
-?Rebecca Wondriska, Trinity Coll. Lib., Hartford, Ct.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0394578791
• ISBN 13: 9780394578798
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384