Walter Cronkite: a man who tried to be objective

Walter Cronkite, who died today at 92, may not always have succeeded in keeping his own liberal politics out of his reporting. But he tried, and he succeeded more than most.

Whether or not one agrees with his politics, one has to admire that in a day in which what passes for journalism is barely-concealed partisan advocacy. Cronkite deserves to be remembered for that alone.

But people of my generation couldn't forget Walter Cronkite if we tried. He was truly a piece of history- a national icon so firmly associated in our minds with the truly historic hours of the last half of the 20th Century that we who lived through them will never be able to remember our own lives without remembering him.

Rest in peace, Walter. You were a man of integrity, who honesty strove to transcend his biases and to tell it the way it was, not as you thought it ought to be spun. And as we were already discovering when you left electronic journalism's center stage, in a national journalist that's not a quality to be taken for granted.

HT: Drudge