Walter Cronkite, the renowned veteran US news anchor, received a lifetime achievement award at the News World conference last week.
Cronkite, a news presenter and correspondent for CBS News from 1950 to 1981, began fronting the CBS Evening News in 1962, the year President John F Kennedy was assassinated.
Often called the “voice and face of America”, and known for his “that’s the way it is” catchphrase, Cronkite famously came close to tears on-air, when he announced JFK’s death.
He also broke with another journalistic convention during the Vietnam War, when he gave his personal views on-air about the conflict, suggesting the US Government should “negotiate” with the Vietnamese.
“All kinds of warnings were given to the audience that this was a personal opinion,” Cronkite recalled to the conference audience. “CBS News did not suffer any kind of loss of viewership as a result.
President Johnson said he felt it had an impact [on the outcome of the war]. It was a single moment, but an unduplicated one,” he said.
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