Walter Cronkite: Proto-Blogger

I became a newshound when, at the age of eleven or so, my family moved to a town where it was possible to watch the evening newscasts of all three American TV networks, one after the other. Each night, I was able to compare what each network considered news, how the stories were presented, and how much importance was attached to each story. The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite came last, and it was almost always the best.

At that time (the late 1960s), all of the network newscasts were presented by old white guys who had been newspaper and/or radio journalists before moving to the relatively new field of television news. The broadcast media tried to be "objective," which generally meant airing the opinions of opposing spokespeople, but not delving too deeply into details.

Cronkite made the best of a limited format, but he truly shone in formats other than the evening news: documentaries, series such as "The 21st Century," and of course, coverage of space missions. Like a lot of kids my age, I was fascinated by the Apollo program, and while I knew that I'd never be an astronaut, I figured that becoming a journalist who covered technology would be the next best thing. Today, I have the good fortune to be a web worker, and to write about it for WWD.

Cronkite was one of the first broadcast journalists who enhanced understanding of the world by mixing facts with opinion when appropriate -- and he did so without sacrificing quality. The best of today's online media have continued and refined that tradition. Thank you, Walter Cronkite, for leading the way.