A Different World

Here is the CBS News team in 1974.

Walter Cronkite died yesterday at 92. During Cronkite’s time as CBS News anchor, 30 million people watched the CBS News (as opposed to 7 million today, with the nation having added more than 100 million). Three networks, one Walter. A different world.

As Los Angeles Times TV critic Robert Lloyd suggests, Cronkite in 1962-81 brought calm to a nation torn by three major assassinations [video here] , Vietnam, urban riots, Watergate, rampant inflation, malaise, and a 14 month hostage crisis yielding five interrupted or failed presidencies in succession. Now TV, in its drive for ratings, hypes garden-variety stories into major crises, replacing “reassuring honesty” with “perpetual anxiety.”