Cronkite, el más grande
Saturday, 18 de July de 2009 por Ramón
Ha muerto el más grande, uno de los que inventaron las noticias en televisión (aunque la paternidad auténtica pertenece a Ed Murrow, de quien fue excelso continuador) y que durante casi 20 años supo protegerlas del espectáculo y la propaganda. Él triunfó y algunos de sus sucesores como Dan Rather, Tow Brokaw y Peter Jennings, también. Después empieza un vacío creciente y el negocio casi a cualquier precio. Un gran legado de periodismo y humanidad el de Walter Cronkite. Descanse en paz.
Walter Cronkite, who pioneered and then mastered the role of television news anchorman with such plain-spoken grace that he was called the most trusted man in America, died Friday at his home in New York. He was 92.
The cause was complications of dementia, said Chip Cronkite, his son.
From 1962 to 1981, Mr. Cronkite was a nightly presence in American homes and always a reassuring one, guiding viewers through national triumphs and tragedies alike, from moonwalks to war, in an era when network news was central to many people’s lives.
He became something of a national institution, with an unflappable delivery, a distinctively avuncular voice and a daily benediction: “And that’s the way it is.” He was Uncle Walter to many: respected, liked and listened to. With his trimmed mustache and calm manner, he even bore a resemblance to another trusted American fixture, another Walter — Walt Disney.
Along with Chet Huntley and David Brinkley on NBC, Mr. Cronkite was among the first celebrity anchormen. In 1995, 14 years after he retired from the “CBS Evening News,” a TV Guide poll ranked him No. 1 in seven of eight categories for measuring television journalists. (He professed incomprehension that Maria Shriver beat him out in the eighth category, attractiveness.) He was so widely known that in Sweden anchormen were once called Cronkiters.
Más en Walter Cronkite, Voice of TV News, Dies firmado por Douglah Martin en The New York Times.
También muy recomendable: Cronkite’s Signature: Approachable Authority por Alessandra Stanley, también en el NYT.
[…] a mi biblioteca periodística. Aquí está la biografía de Cronkite (Memorias de un reportero), editada por El País Aguilar en 1997. Publico tres frases de este […]