Walter Cronkite: “the most trusted man in America”.

Part 1 Radio

· Do you often listen to the radio? What sort of stations do you usually listen to?

· Do you use radio as a source on information? Why? Why not?

· Study the small text in the box below.

· Answer the following questions:

ü What old mass communication devices do we still use? Are they all equally successful and popular nowadays?

ü How would you explain the meaning of the expression ‘to keep someone on the toes and updated’?

ü Why is the word ‘astonishingly’ used in the text?

· Study the following list of careers on a radio station. Does any position appeal to you?

· Study the vocabulary:

ü Fill in the gaps in the sentences.

1. A ___________________oversees the key departments at a station, including sales, programming, promotions, and engineering.

2. __________________ are responsible for the technical components of a radio station.

3. A _________________ is responsible for hiring a national and local sales team.

4. ______________________ work with on-air personalities and help foster the image of the station by coming up with clever promotions.

5. ______________________ sell air time on the radio station as well as other sponsorship opportunities

6. A_______________________ is often in charge of programming at multiple stations.


7. The______________________ is the final decision maker at a radio station and sets the tone for the rest of the staff

8. The news department is run by a ___________________________.

9. A college degree is a prerequisite for _________________________.

10. A _________________works with the air talent of a particular show by booking guests and devising content for the program.

11. A ______________________anchors sportscasts on a station and also covers local teams.

12. A___________________________, in most cases, anchors newscasts on the station.

· Imagine that you are given a chance to start your own radio station.

ü Will it be a talk or a music station? What will be the target audience of your station?

ü How would you choose a person for the position of the GM?

ü What qualities and qualifications will the on-air staff of your station possess?

ü Discuss and role-play an interview with a person, who is applying for a job on your radio station.

READING

· Before you read:

ü Name two/three radio/TV personalities that have shaped the image of radio/TV in your country.

ü What makes these people so special? Do they possess any unique professional (human) qualities?

Walter Cronkite: “the most trusted man in America”.

‘Walter Cronkite came to be the sort of personification of his era,’ – one of his colleagues said. ‘He became kind of the media figure of his time. Very few people in history, except maybe political and military leaders, are the embodiment of their time, and Cronkite seemed to be.’

At one time, his audience was so large, and his image so credible, that a 1972 poll determined he was “the most trusted man in America” – surpassing even the president, vice president, members of Congress and all other journalists. In a time of turmoil and mistrust, after Vietnam and Watergate, the title was a rare feat – and the label stuck.

"For decades, Walter Cronkite was the most trusted voice in America," said President Barack Obama in a statement. "His rich baritone reached millions of living rooms every night, and in an industry of icons, Walter set the standard by which all others have been judged."

Mr. Obama said that Cronkite calmly shared the world's news while never losing his integrity.

"But Walter was always more than just an anchor," Mr. Obama said. "He was someone we could trust to guide us through the most important issues of the day; a voice of certainty in an uncertain world. He was family. He invited us to believe in him, and he never let us down. "

Cronkite's achievements were remarkable for a man whose beginnings were anything but remarkable.

Walter Leland Cronkite was born in St. Joseph, Missouri on November 4, 1916, the only child of a dentist father and homemaker mother. When he was still young, his family moved to Texas. One day, he read an article in "Boys Life" magazine about the adventures of reporters working around the world - and young Cronkite was hooked. He began working on his high school newspaper and yearbook and, in 1933, he entered the University of Texas at Austin to study political science, economic and journalism. He never graduated. He took a part time job at the Houston Post, left college to do what he loved: report.

After working as a general assignment reporter for the Post and a sportscaster in Oklahoma City, Cronkite got a job in 1939 working for United Press. He went to Europe to cover World War II as part of the "Writing 69th," a group of reporters who found themselves covering some of the most important developments in the war, including bombing missions over Germany, and later, the Nuremburg war trials. In 1940, he married Mary Elizabeth Maxwell - known as "Betsy" - and for the next six decades she was the dutiful reporter’s wife, enduring sometimes long separations while he covered the world, and raising three children. Cronkite once wrote about her: “I attribute the longevity of our marriage to Betsy’s extraordinary keen sense of humor, which saw us over many bumps (mostly of my making), and her tolerance, even support, for the uncertain schedule and wanderings of a newsman.”

While working for the UP, Cronkite was offered a job at CBS by Edward R. Murrow – and he turned it down. He finally accepted a second offer in 1950, and stepped into the new medium of television. In the early 50s, it was a medium many of the ‘serious’ journalists at CBS and elsewhere viewed with skepticism, if not disdain. Radio and print, they contended, were for real reporters; television was for actors or comedians.

At first, it seemed an unlikely fit. Walter Cronkite, with his serious demeanor and unpretentious style - honed by his years of unvarnished reporting at UP - was named host of "You Are There" in which key moments of history were recreated by actors. Cronkite was depicted on camera interviewing "Joan of Arc" or "Sigmund Freud." But somehow, he managed to make it believable.

The young director of the series, Sidney Lumet said he picked Cronkite for the job because "the premise of the series was so silly, so outrageous, that we needed somebody with the most American, homespun, warm ease about him."

During his early years at CBS, Cronkite was also named host of "The Morning Show" on CBS, where he was paired with a partner: a puppet named Charlemagne. But he distinguished himself with his coverage of the 1952 and 1956 political conventions and as narrator of the documentary series "Twentieth Century." In 1961, CBS named him the anchor of the "CBS Evening News" - a 15 minute news summary anchored for several years by Douglas Edwards.

At the time, the broadcast lived in the long shadow cast by NBC's Huntley-Brinkley Report, the most popular television newscast in the country. Expectations for the Cronkite newscast were not high. But in 1963, the broadcast was expanded to 30 minutes – and Cronkite won a title for which he had long campaigned, Managing Editor. The added time gave the broadcast more depth and variety, and the title gave Cronkite more influence over the content and coverage.

And it came at a significant time. In September of that year, Cronkite launched the expanded program with an extended interview with President John F. Kennedy. Two months later, it was Cronkite who broke into the soap opera "As The World Turns" to announce that the president had been shot – and later to declare that he had been killed.

It was a defining moment for Cronkite, and for the country. His presence – in shirtsleeves, slowly removing his glasses to check the time and blink back tears – captured both the sense of shock, and the struggle for composure, that would consume America and the world over the next four days.

Cronkite's audience began to grow – but not quickly enough for network executives who, in 1964, decided to try an anchor team at the conventions – Robert Trout and Roger Mudd – to rival Chet Huntley and David Brinkley at NBC. Cronkite was not happy about the change, and viewer reaction was swift. Over 11,000 letters poured in protesting the switch. Network executives never tried that again. In 1966, The CBS Evening News began to overtake the Huntley-Brinkley report in the ratings, and in 1967 it took the lead. It remained there until Cronkite's retirement in 1981.

They were years filled with astonishing change – and indelible history. In 1968, Cronkite returned from visiting Vietnam and declared on television: “It seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is a stalemate.” President Lyndon Johnson, on hearing that, reportedly said, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost America." Not long after, Johnson declared his intention not to run for re-election. That same year saw the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy – two more shocking moments that bound the country together through the medium of television. Once again, as he had five years earlier, Cronkite was the steadying force during a time of national sorrow.

“It's a kind of chemistry,” former Johnson aide and CBS News commentator Bill Moyers once said. “The camera either sees you as part of the environment or it rejects you as an alien body, and Walter had 'it,' whatever 'it' was.”

One of Cronkite's enthusiasms was the space race. And in 1969, when America sent a man to the moon, he couldn't contain himself. “Go baby, go!,” he said, as Apollo XI took off. He ended up performing what critics described as “Walter to Walter” coverage of the mission – staying on the air for 27 of the 30 hours that Apollo XI took to complete its mission.

Cronkite even managed to have a surprising influence on world affairs. In 1977, he interviewed Egyptian President Anwar El-Sadat, who told Cronkite that, if invited, he’d go to Jerusalem to meet with Prime Minister Menachem Begin. The move was unprecedented. The next day, Begin invited Sadat to Jerusalem for talks that eventually led to the Camp David accords and the Israeli-Egyptian treaty.

In 1981, Cronkite announced he would retire at the age of 65, to make way for a new anchor in the chair, Dan Rather. A commentator in the New Republic said it was like “George Washington leaving the dollar bill.” There were so many requests for interviews, eventually all of them were turned down.

In retirement, Cronkite kept busy with other projects – a short-lived magazine program on CBS called "Walter Cronkite's Universe," a few documentaries, plus a seat on the CBS board of directors. He spent a considerable amount of time at his summer home in Martha's Vineyard, sailing the boat he named for his wife, "The Betsy." And he wrote his autobiography, "A Reporter's Life," published in 1996.

In 2005, Cronkite's wife Betsy died after a battle with cancer. His two daughters and son survive him.

While Cronkite kept a lower profile in his later years, he did make a significant contribution to the "CBS Evening News with Katie Couric": it is his voice that has been used during the opening of the broadcast since its debut in 2006, bridging generations and signifying the newscast's strong link to its storied past.

· Understanding the story

ü Choose the best answer to the following questions:

1. In the first passage the author implies that

A. Walter Cronkite was an important political and military leader.

B. Walter Cronkite was an outstanding personality.

C. Several political and military leaders were as important as Walter Cronkite.

2. President Barack Obama thinks that

A. Walter Cronkite’s work was connected with icons.

B. Walter Cronkite was respected by his colleagues.

C. Walter Cronkite was popular among Americans.

3. The author thinks that Cronkite's achievements were remarkable

A. Because he came from a remarkable background.

B. Because there was nothing special about his background.

C. Because he was not expected to become an extraordinary personality

4. According to the story, "Writing 69th"

A. was a group of war correspondents

B. took part in bombing missions over Germany

C. took part in the Nuremburg war trials

5. According to the text, in the early 50s, radio was

A. as popular as TV

B. less popular than TV

C. more popular than TV

6. According to the text, Walter Cronkite as the host of the "You Are There" program,

A. interviewed such famous people as Sigmund Freud.

B. took part in historical recreations

C. interviewed some actors

7. According to the story, Walter Cronkite wanted to become the Managing Editor of his news program because

A. it was an important step in his career

B. it was a chance to make this program as popular as Huntley-Brinkley Report

C. he wanted to change the program

8. The day when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated was important for Cronkite’s career because

A. Kennedy was his personal friend

B. he managed to express the emotions of the whole nation

C. he managed to make a live report about president’s death

9. According to the text

A. Cronkite’s attitude to the war in Vietnam was important

B. Cronkite was against wars in general

C. Cronkite was against President Lyndon Johnson

10. In 1977

A. Cronkite asked President Anwar El-Sadat to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin

B. Cronkite was invited go to Jerusalem to meet with Prime Minister Menachem Begin

C. Cronkite made the words of President Anwar El-Sadat heard

ü Discuss the following questions:

1. What does the author of the text mean when he says that Cronkite came to be the sort of personification of his era?

2. What does the author mean when he writes that the title given to Cronkite was ‘a rare feat’?

3. Why did President Obama call Cronkite ‘more than just an anchor’?

4. What do we learn about Cronkite’s background from the story?

5. What do we learn about "Writing 69th" from the text?

6. What can you say about Cronkite’s family life? What made his wife Betsy an ideal wife for a reporter?

7. What do we learn about Cronkite’s coming to television? Was it an important step in his career? Why do you think so?

8. What do we learn about Cronkite’s interview with Sigmund Freud from the story?

9. Who was Cronkite’s partner in the famous program "The Morning Show"?

10. What made Cronkite’s coverage of Kennedy’s assassination so special?

11. What do we learn about Cronkite’s role in the war in Vietnam?

12. What did critics describe as “Walter to Walter” coverage?

13. What does the author of the text describe as “a surprising influence on world affairs”?

14. What did a commentator in the New Republic describe as “George Washington leaving the dollar bill”?

15. What did Walter Cronkite do in retirement?

· Focus on vocabulary

ü Match the word from the first column with its meaning.

· Topics for discussion.

ü What did you learn about Cronkite’s education? Do you think that professional training in journalism is essential for a good career? Nowadays many people believe that a university degree is useless for a good journalist. Do you agree with this viewpoint?

ü What did you learn about Cronkite’s marriage from the text? What did Walter Cronkite attribute the longevity of his marriage to? Do you think that a good family is less important than a good career? Do you agree that men and women have different viewpoints on this problem? If you had to choose between a good career and a good family – what would you choose?

January 26, 1997

Broadcast News

By TOM WICKER

Walter Cronkite's memoir of television journalism from its infancy to the age of the talking haircut

hen John F. Kennedy was murdered in Dallas in 1963, Walter Cronkite stayed on the air for the Columbia Broadcasting System for countless hours. His performance that weekend helped pull together a nation stricken with grief and was a signal event in television's evolution into the national nervous system.

When Mr. Cronkite came back from Vietnam after the Tet offensive of 1968, he concluded on national television that the war had become no better than a stalemate. Hearing that, President Lyndon Johnson told associates, ''If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America.'' And he had. When Mr. Cronkite asked Robert Kennedy, then a senator from New York, whether he would run for President in 1968, Kennedy turned the tables: he proposed that Mr. Cronkite should run for the Senate. Mr. Cronkite refused, but the idea reflected polls showing that a journalist -- a television journalist at that -- had become the most trusted man in America.

Walter Cronkite had come a long way from the little-known World War II and Moscow correspondent whom the old United Press had tried to promote to its London bureau at the magnificent salary of $127.50 a week -- plus a cut in its overseas cost-of-living allowance. Mr. Cronkite had been with the wire service for 11 years.

For obvious reasons, the relationship would not last much longer. The future anchorman switched to radio for a group of Midwestern stations and arrived to head the group's Washington bureau just in time for Harry Truman's inauguration in 1949. When the Korean War broke out, he accepted a longstanding offer from Edward R. Murrow and CBS. But he never got to Korea; CBS bought WTOP-TV in Washington and assigned Mr. Cronkite as its newscaster, more experienced radio reporters being contemptuous of the new medium.

Mr. Cronkite started his television career with no scriptwriter and no script other than wire service reports and a few scribbled notes ''pasted behind the desk sign that identified WTOP-TV.'' He presented war news with the chalked outline of Korea on a blackboard and drew arrows to depict troop movements. A scorched map represented Kansas during a drought.

Such tales of the makeshift early days of television are among the most entertaining in Mr. Cronkite's modest but highly readable memoir, ''A Reporter's Life.'' And these experiences left him unprepared for the fame that followed his pioneering anchor stint at the exciting 1952 national party conventions, the last to be straight news events, without party stage management.

''Well, Walter,'' said Sig Mickelson, then president of CBS News, ''you're famous now. And you are going to want a lot more money. You'd better get an agent.'' The idea struck Walter Cronkite the reporter as ridiculous, something out of show biz. He was then making ''below two hundred a week,'' plus sponsors' fees, and he saw, presciently, that ''down that road lay the perils of the star system and the million-dollar anchors.''

During the years before Mr. Cronkite's anchorman fame, Senator Lyndon Johnson, the majority leader, had arrived at WTOP-TV for his first appearance on what later became ''Face the Nation.'' When L.B.J. characteristically passed out a list of questions he demanded to be asked, Mr. Cronkite had to explain that news programs didn't work that way. Johnson walked out in a huff, but Mr. Cronkite persuaded him to return for the interview, which proved to be a half-hour of ''monosyllabic answers or none at all.''

Johnson's Presidency, the Tet offensive and the momentous ''stalemate'' broadcast were two decades ahead, but Mr. Cronkite recalls the incident as ''a harbinger of the relationship that still exists between politics and television: a standoff between an attempt to manipulate the medium and the medium's determination not to be manipulated.'' Many a viewer has concluded that the manipulators are all too often winning that struggle these days, and in a powerful final chapter, Mr. Cronkite agrees: ''The photo opportunity, the manipulation of the sound bite, the control of the so-called debates, the barrage of . . . negative commercials -- all are instrumental in turning political campaigns into political theater to be played out on television's home screens.''

This deterioration of television news is a disaster, in Mr. Cronkite's view, and he does not hesitate to name names and point fingers. He believes a free press essential to democracy, and considers the television branch -- even at its infrequent best -- inherently inadequate to the necessary public enlightenment: ''The nation whose population depends on the explosively compressed headline service of television news can expect to be exploited by the demagogues and dictators who prey upon the semi-informed.'' Mr. Cronkite also fears, with reason, that print journalism is following television news into ''infotainment.'' He offers two remedies: educating young people to become more discriminating about news and persuading advertisers to support responsible journalism. His tone conveys the message that he's not holding his breath.

Walter Cronkite is a serious man and this is a serious message, but ''A Reporter's Life'' is far more than a sermon on the First Amendment (which he believes is ''at the heart of the American success story''). It's the story of a modest man who succeeded extravagantly by remaining mostly himself -- succeeded in a demanding new medium, itself part of an exploding technology that made the world more complex by enabling peoples to know more about one another. And not unlike journalism itself, his memoir is a short course on the flow of events in the second half of this century -- events the world knows more about because of Walter Cronkite's work, and some of which might not have happened without it.

Mr. Cronkite also displays here his avid interest in and great knowledge of the space program, which marked his anchor years, and the ease with which he moved among so many of the great names of the era: Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, among Presidents; Fidel Castro, Frank Sinatra, James Michener, the Duke of Edinburgh, Frank Costello, among an eclectic list of others.

Mr. Cronkite plays down as undeserved, however, the credit he was given for bringing together Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin, thus ''setting off the chain of events that would lead to the first formal peace between Israel and an Arab neighbor.'' As he tells it, the subject first arose when he was fighting ''to stay awake'' during a ''tepid'' interview with Sadat on the bank of the Nile. Sadat unexpectedly said he would go to Jerusalem if there could be peace with Israel.

The remark was not even included in that evening's broadcast, but rumors of Sadat's intent kept surfacing, and Mr. Cronkite decided to pin them down. In a satellite interview on Nov. 14, 1977, he deployed the journalist's best weapon: he asked. Sadat replied that he would go to Jerusalem that very week, on only one condition -- that he be able to outline Egypt's position to the Knesset. Begin, with some backing and filling, accepted, and Sadat flew to Israel four days later -- with Walter Cronkite aboard his plane. ''It was later suggested by some critics that I had overstepped the bounds of journalistic propriety by trying to negotiate an Israeli-Egyptian detente,'' Mr. Cronkite writes. ''They did not know the full story -- that my initial journalistic intention was to knock down the speculation over the visit.'' With no intent to dispute that purpose, I'd say that few other journalists of any period could have elicited that vital information from Sadat, or gained its acceptance from a relatively unenthusiastic Begin.

In 1973, years after Sig Mickelson proposed he get an agent, Mr. Cronkite sought and won summer time off instead of a salary increase. He reflects that if he ''had played for different results'' he might have become a million-dollar anchor, the industry's first ''before ABC hired Barbara Walters.''

Suppose he had ''played for different results'' -- not just then but all during his career? The age of infotainment might have arrived years sooner, the near illiteracy of a sensation-seeking public might be much farther advanced than it sadly is, and we might never have had a man we could call our most trusted -- as we don't today. Walter Cronkite might even have become a senator, one more of which we hardly need, and all those Americans who watched his nightly broadcasts for so many years certainly would have been the poorer. That's the way it is.

Tom Wicker is a former columnist for The New York Times.

https://www.nytimes.com/books/97/01/26/reviews/970126.26wickert.html

http://www.cision.com/us/category/trends/

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 1482