Walter Cronkite, legendary TV news anchor, dies

The death of Walter Leland Cronkite Jr at the age of 92 calls to mind a golden age of American television news journalism of which he, as the authoritative longtime anchorman for the CBS Evening News, was the undisputed titan.

Mr Cronkite died in New York on Friday after an illness, CBS said. His family issued a statement weeks ago that he had been suffering for some years with cerebrovascular disease and was not expected to recuperate.

Scrupulously objective in conveying the news to the nation, he was widely considered the ultimate voice of reason and frequently rated one of the most trusted people in America. Somewhat gruff on air and with heavy dark spectacles, his sign-off line - "that's the way it is" followed by the date - became a trademark.

From 1962-81 he was the face and voice that reported momentous events. They ran from the assassination of President John Kennedy, through the traumas of the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandals, the civil rights movement and the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, to the exultation of man landing on the moon and to the Middle East peace summit that brought Egypt and Israel together, in which he played some part.

He was known widely as Uncle Walter and in the broadcasting business as Old Ironpants for his ability to remain on air, unflappable, for hours on end. That was first most evident in the days after JFK's assassination. His announcement of the president's death, reading a slip of wire service copy and then removing his glasses for the denouement, is an indelible moment in television history.

He was a lifelong journalist. Born on November 4, 1916, in St Joseph, Missouri, he mostly grew up in Houston and attended the University of Texas in Austin, where he worked on the campus newspaper and radio station, but left before graduation for a reporter's job on the Houston Post.

In 1939 he was recruited by United Press International, then one of the two top US wire services, and became one of the first accredited US war correspondents in Europe, where he came to know the illustrious CBS reporter, Edward Murrow. He covered most of the major battles of World War Two and the subsequent Nuremberg war trials. He was also based for a time in Brussels and from 1946-48 served as UPI bureau chief in Moscow.

CBS hired him in 1950 to develop a news division for its TV station in the nation's capital, but he quickly became an on-air presence, covering his first presidential election and party conventions in 1952. His elevation to the anchor's slot on the national evening news, then only 15 minutes long, came in 1962: he got its air time doubled within a year.

At the time, the evening news programmes on the three commercial networks, CBS, NBC and ABC, were dominant, mandatory viewing for much of the nation. Intensely competitive, professional and brooking no interference from their corporate masters and advertisers, all featured heavyweight broadcasters, John Chancellor for NBC and David Brinkley and Chet Huntley for ABC the most prominent alongside, if a little behind, Walter Cronkite.

Still, he never thought a half-hour programme, minus commercials, was sufficient . "Everything is being compressed into tiny tablets," he once said. " You take a little pill of news every day for 23 minutes and that is supposed to be enough."

But that did not take account of the frequent current affairs documentaries and specials that automatically pre-empted regular programming whenever events demanded - and they could be controversial and hard-hitting. President Lyndon Johnson always thought that it was Mr Cronkite's presentation of coverage of the Vietnam War that helped turn the nation against the conflict. President Richard Nixon felt the same way over Watergate.

His replacement in 1981 as CBS anchor was indicative, however, that TV times were changing. His successor, Dan Rather, was everything he was not - much younger, hyperactive rather than sober-minded and prone to interject his own personality into coverage, an approach anathema to a classically trained reporter prizing objectivity above all else.

Mr Cronkite remained active in television for years, presenting programmes on science, the environment and education for CBS and other outlets. He sometimes regretted the decline in television news standards, especially its commingling with the entertainment business, and the title of his 1996 autobiography, A Reporter's Life, made clear where he thought television's priorities should lie. But he never made much of a public meal of the issue.

He took consolation, if he needed it, in his love for sailing. His wife, Betsy, whom he married in 1940 and with whom he had three children, once said; "Erroll Flynn died at 70 on a yacht with a 17 year old; Walter will probably expire on a 17 footer with a 70 year old."

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