R.I.P. Walter Cronkite

The “Most Trusted Man in America,” Walter Cronkite, passed away on Friday night.

CBS released this statement:

Walter Cronkite, who personified television journalism for more than a generation as anchor and managing editor of the “CBS Evening News,” has died. CBS vice president Linda Mason says Cronkite died at 7:42 p.m. Friday with his family by his side at his home in New York after a long illness. He was 92….He broke the news of the Kennedy assassination, reported extensively on Vietnam and Civil Rights and Watergate, and seemed to be the very embodiment of TV journalism.

Back in the mid 80’s and  90’s, I was a Newscast Director for a local CBS affiliate in the Northwest. By the time I joined KBCI Channel 2,  Dan Rather had taken over as the main anchor of the CBS Evening News, but Walter Cronkite’s inestimable presence was forever there. The video below serves as a testament to Cronkite’s passion for NASA and the first Moon mission. He  said himself, “the conquest of Space is one of the great stories of the 20th Century.” 40 years ago, Cronkite stayed on the air for 27 hours of the 30 hours  it took for  Apollo 11 to reach the Moon.

CBS  finished their fine tribute with:

As Cronkite said on March 6, 1981, concluding his final broadcast as anchorman: “Old anchormen, you see, don’t fade away, they just keep coming back for more. And that’s the way it is.”

Click here to watch Walter Cronkite’s enthusiatic  story of the Apollo 11 Mission.