In continuing this year’s trend of dying celebrities, Walter Cronkite died this weekend of causes related to dementia.
I was never alive or old enough to watch his newcast, so all I know about him before this event was that he was a very well respected anchorman (kind of like CTV’s Lloyd Robertson. Today, I watched a tribute to his legacy on CBS (he was the anchor on CBS Evening News) and learned about his history. He presided over many important events in the preceding decades, like the Vietnam War, Woodstock, the death of JFK and LBJ, Watergate and through this became the trusted voice of news. They even asked him to run for president after he retired!
Walter Cronkite, like Christopher Columbus is one of those people who I don’t we will ever see again. Back in the 60s and 70s, it was a simpler and more straightforward time where people were able to believe in someone else telling them what the truth should be. The nature of society has become more cognitively complex and I can’t imagine a de-evolution to provide the conditions necessary for another Walter Cronkite to emerge. This weekend then, we did see a legend pass.