That’s the way it is, as I see it

By Albert DeSimone

Walter Cronkite was the voice of the news in the United States throughout the 1960s and 70s. He anchored the CBS News with Walter Cronkite from 1962 to 1981. It was the number one news program in the U.S. during that span, and the first news program to expand to 30 minutes.

Cronkite was there when the shift in the primary news source in the U.S. transitioned from newspapers and radio to television. 

We read the news in the morning newspaper, mostly alone, with a cup of coffee or listened to the news on our car radios to and from work. With television, we watched the news in our living rooms—we could actually see the news—often with family members, creating an interactive experience. 

Television made the news a visually interactive event. 

Cronkite ended each program with “And that’s the way it is,” and every viewer believed him.

He was more than a trusted voice; he stood for honesty and journalistic integrity. One of Cronkite’s famous quotes: “It is our duty to be sure that we do not permit our prejudices to show. That is simply basic journalism.”

Then February 27, 1968, happened. The Cronkite Moment. 

The Vietnam War was tearing the country apart. Even so, Cronkite followed the information the U.S. government and foreign correspondents provided. He delivered the news as it was—no embellishment and no personal opinions. 

“Until 1968,” writes Joel Achenbach in The Washington Post, “Walter Cronkite believed what his government told him about the Vietnam War.” (“Did the news media, led by Walter Cronkite, lose the war in Vietnam?”)

Cronkite visited Vietnam in February 1968 during the Tet Offensive (a major military push by the Vietnamese army). In his special report, Report from Vietnam on February 27, he did something he had never done. He rendered a personal opinion, a significant departure from his usual matter-of-fact style. 

Cronkite said the Vietnam War was unwinnable: “To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion.”

His opinion shocked his viewers, which is hard to believe with the bombastic, hearsay-driven, and highly opinionated journalism today. His comments were so significant that the President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson, said of the broadcast: “If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America.”

The American people were predisposed to take anything Cronkite said to heart. The message—this war is a stalemate—changed the American attitude toward the Vietnam War. 

In short, investigative journalism would never be the same. Cronkite legitimized dissent. He legitimized skepticism of the government. 

Most of all, he elevated the position of opinion in investigative journalism. 

As a consequence, in this writer’s opinion, the progress of investigative journalism has led us from a deep dive into the facts to a biased news media where facts are secondary to clickthroughs and impressions.

Albert DeSimone resides in Bishop