Cronkite’s Golden Standards

It is hard to fall asleep at night because Typhoon Molave is blowing hard. I turn on the computer and read media reports about Cronkite and watch television segments of him in different periods on YouTube. He is gone.

This is the end of an era. Twenty years ago, Cronkite retired from his long-held anchor position at CBS news when broadcast television was at its peak. The status of newspapers and magazines remained the same. At the time, the internet and mobile communication devices were still in their infancy, making it difficult for people to imagine that the media business would transform so significantly.

For the Facebook and Twitter generation, Cronkite is a symbol of the past. However, he was the “new media” pioneer. We call the media before the internet “traditional media,” but we forget that its long history is normally suppressed by new generations. In fact, after print media, the appearance of broadcasting and television were both revolutionary for mass media. In the 1950s, Cronkite stepped into the television business as a news correspondent. Wasn’t this the “new media” for that generation?

Cronkite’s greatest contribution to the new media was that he brought his “old” ideas with him. That is, he carried over the professional standards he acquired as a news journalist and news correspondent during his experiences in disasters, wars and politics. When long-time executive producer of CBS Don Hewitt heard about the news of Cronkite’s death, he told journalists that it was Cronkite who established the “golden standards” for television.

What Kind of Standards Are These?

Truth. “There is only one thing that a good journalist needs to do. Tell the truth.” The biggest truth that he told after he returned from the frontier was that “the bloody Vietnam war is unwinnable.” His report declared the defeat of the Johnson administration in the Vietnam War.

Accuracy. “Accurate facts, concise expression and rapid publication” is what he wanted from the news. As a strict reader, even two minutes before the broadcasting, he asked editors to check their data.

Independence. Cronkite was against any pressure placed on him by media administrators during his evening news program to fit the needs of politics or commerce. Incidents like this appeared in the report of the Watergate scandal. CBS had drawn back under pressure but, eventually, Cronkite successfully broadcast on television about the young Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s study, yielding shocking results.

Dignity. Cronkite’s reporting style is moderate and sincere. He is against showiness and vulgarity. He is also against sarcastic remarks and interrupting others during interviews just to increase the television viewing rate. As exemplified by his calm composure while reporting President Kennedy’s assassination and President Nixon’s resignation, he never gloated, and thus earned respect for the media.

Cronkite earned the highest praise for being so trustworthy. In 1972, the Gallup opinion poll honored Cronkite as the “most trusted man in the U.S.” In the midst of the turmoil of the 1960s and 70s, this was truly an honor. The American Public Radio Broadcasting Company stated in a special television program that, “during a time of anger and divergence, Americans truly believed that Walter Cronkite would never tell them lies.”

In general, these are the ABCs of journalism. The reason they have become the golden standards is not the persistent efforts of one man over the course of sixty years. Rather, they are products of history and the result of the human search for truth. There is nothing in the world that is completely new. Excellent tradition is a solid foundation. When technology is leading us to climb up the top of the media skyscraper, please turn back and take a look at our foundation.