"Cronkite"

[LKellerIII]

Speaking of errors, how many of you have the book "Bad TV" by Craig Nelson from the winter of '94-'95? In page 255 in discussing local newscasts in mentions something about local anchor teams patterned after a "Walter Cronkite-David Brinkley model". When did Cronkite and Brinkley EVER work with each other? Didn't the author ever hear of someone named Chet Huntley?

WC: "And that's the way it is, September 13, 1968. Goodnight, David."

DB: "Goodnight, Walter."

Walter did say Goodnight Chet

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNHLejA6onY

Awww...that was really nice. What a great tribute. They were both real gentlemen. Huntley never did get into politics - he died just a few years later in 1974. If I remember correctly, he could not have been called one of the "liberal media elite." I believe he was a conservative.

 

[ixnay]

Cronkite was an American journalist. Rather was a political hack

Some posters on the conservative mb freerepublic.com think Cronkite was a political hack, too. Type their names on freerepublic.com's search engine and you'll see threads that waste little time degenerating into calling Walter names like "Crankcase" or "Aunt Walter" or "Krankheit" (the German word for sick, although Cronkite was IIRC Dutch on his dad's side). Some "FReepers" will call Rather and Couric names like "Blather" and "Colic". Some FReepers will blame Cronkite's "stalemate" comment for losing 'Nam. Some FReepers call Walter a Commie.

Since Huntley was a Montanan, I wouldn't be suprised that he was a conservative. What was D. Brinkley's politics?

ixnay

 

[LKellerIII]

Cronkite was an American journalist. Rather was a political hack

Some posters on the conservative mb freerepublic.com think Cronkite was a political hack, too. Type their names on freerepublic.com's search engine and you'll see threads that waste little time degenerating into calling Walter names like "Crankcase" or "Aunt Walter" or "Krankheit" (the German word for sick, although Cronkite was IIRC Dutch on his dad's side). Some "FReepers" will call Rather and Couric names like "Blather" and "Colic". Some FReepers will blame Cronkite's "stalemate" comment for losing 'Nam. Some FReepers call Walter a Commie.

Since Huntley was a Montanan, I wouldn't be suprised that he was a conservative. What was D. Brinkley's politics?

ixnay

I mostly remember Brinkley from later years, when he was moderating This Week... My memory is that he was one of the best at hiding his politics behind a publicly objective face. He was equally as polite, but asked tough questions of both liberals and conservatives.

 

[TVWorldwide]

I mostly remember Brinkley from later years, when he was moderating This Week... My memory is that he was one of the best at hiding his politics behind a publicly objective face. He was equally as polite, but asked tough questions of both liberals and conservatives.

During ABC's 1996 presidential election coverage, he upset some Clinton supporters by criticizing the newly reelected President, apparently unaware that he was on the air. From Wikipedia:

Days before his announced retirement from regular news coverage, Brinkley made a rare on-air mistake during evening coverage of the 1996 presidential election, at a moment when he thought they were on commercial break. One of his colleagues asked him what he thought of Bill Clinton's re-election. He called Clinton "a bore" and added, "The next four years will be filled with pretty words, and pretty music, and a lot of goddamn nonsense!" One of his team pointed out that they were still on the air. Brinkley said, "Really? Well, I'm leaving anyway!" Brinkley worked this mistake into a chance for an apology as part of a one-on-one interview with Clinton that followed a week or so later.

 

[Ultimajock]

Walter did say Goodnight Chet

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNHLejA6onY

Awww...that was really nice. What a great tribute. They were both real gentlemen.

...when Huntley died, Cronkite introduced his obit by saying, among other things, that "Chet Huntley was the most gracuious man I've ever met in this industry"...

Huntley never did get into politics - he died just a few years later in 1974. If I remember correctly, he could not have been called one of the "liberal media elite." I believe he was a conservative.

...not really that conservative. When he worked for KNX Radio in Los Angeles during World War 2, he and Orson Welles distributed pamphlets throughout CBS' West Coast facilities for the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee, which was trying to (and eventually did) overturn the Zoot Suit Riot murder convictions. And in his famous commentary on social hatred on the Huntley-Brinkley Report of 22 November 1963, he singled out an infamous piece the National Review had published a few weeks earlier joking about how Chief Justice Earl Warren "should be hanged"...

 

[Mitchell H]

Huntley...not really that conservative

Ultimajock, that fits my recollection as well, and I say this as a conservative who admires both Huntley and Brinkley. Huntley's commentary regarding social hatred was controversial at the time, and the H-B Report was often perceived as having a liberal bias. IIRC, at the 64 GOP Convention the delegates booed and shook their fists at the NBC commentary booth after Eisenhower made a comment about the media trying to divide the party.

On the other hand, considering how ideologies have morphed in the past decades, it's quite possible that Huntley would be thought of today as more conservative than liberal.

By the way, one of my great Huntley moments is when, while reporting on the Profumo scandal in England, he referred to Christine Keeler, with great dignity, as a "trollope," as if he was disgusted at the idea of even using the word "prostitute" on television. Hard to imagine any of the anchors having that kind of dignity today.

 

[LKellerIII]

According to Wikipedia, Huntley was liberal on social issues, but conservative in regard to government spending and regulation. So projecting if he were still around, he would presumably be pro-choice and pro-gay marriage, but fiscally conservative and pro-deregulation.

 

[blackgold]

And by the way, Walter Cronkite was a member of Bohemian Grove in California and provided the voice of the Owl during the Cremation of Care ceremonies each July!

 

[KeithE4]

According to Wikipedia, Huntley was liberal on social issues, but conservative in regard to government spending and regulation. So projecting if he were still around, he would presumably be pro-choice and pro-gay marriage, but fiscally conservative and pro-deregulation.

Today, he'd probably be considered more of a libertarian (small "L," not the party).

 

[Ultimajock]

According to Wikipedia, Huntley was liberal on social issues, but conservative in regard to government spending and regulation. So projecting if he were still around, he would presumably be pro-choice and pro-gay marriage, but fiscally conservative and pro-deregulation.

Today, he'd probably be considered more of a libertarian (small "L," not the party).

...as would be Howard K. Smith, Cronkite and Huntley's competition at ABC...

 

[FreddyE1977]

My grandfather made it a point never to miss Cronkite.

I remember when he got his first color set I used to like to play with the
Chromix knob (ahh....the wonders of NTSC). He would sit down after dinner
to Cronkite with a purple face. Used to make him mad as heck. Took may a
whooping over that.

Probably one of the reasons why my dad did not buy a color set until I was around 11.

 

[jfrancispastirchak]

According to Wikipedia, Huntley was liberal on social issues, but conservative in regard to government spending and regulation. So projecting if he were still around, he would presumably be pro-choice and pro-gay marriage, but fiscally conservative and pro-deregulation.

Like Romney...

 

[jfrancispastirchak]

I mostly remember Brinkley from later years, when he was moderating This Week... My memory is that he was one of the best at hiding his politics behind a publicly objective face. He was equally as polite, but asked tough questions of both liberals and conservatives.

To some extent, I might say the same for Tim Russert, though not for Conkrite. The industry is poorer today for it's ideology-driven newscasting model, and could learn from the Brinkley standard.

 

[Mitchell H]

According to Wikipedia, Huntley was liberal on social issues, but conservative in regard to government spending and regulation. So projecting if he were still around, he would presumably be pro-choice and pro-gay marriage, but fiscally conservative and pro-deregulation.

Today, he'd probably be considered more of a libertarian (small "L," not the party).

At work now so I can't grab the issue, but I recall a TV Guide interview with Howard K. Smith in which he says something similar, that he's a liberal on some issues, a conservative on others. He doesn't say which issues are which, but in his commentaries (which were labeled as such) he was a supporter of the Vietnam War (to the extent that some said ABC stood for the "Administration Broadcasting Network"), took a lot of heat for doing what some saw as a hatchet job on Richard Nixon after Nixon lost the gubernatorial race in California, later did an exclusive interview with Nixon (probably because of his support of the war), and supposedly supported Ed Muskie for the presidency in 1972. I think it fair to say his personal politics were probably on an issue-by-issue basis, rather than supporting one party over the other.

 

[jfrancispastirchak]

According to Wikipedia, Huntley was liberal on social issues, but conservative in regard to government spending and regulation. So projecting if he were still around, he would presumably be pro-choice and pro-gay marriage, but fiscally conservative and pro-deregulation.

Today, he'd probably be considered more of a libertarian (small "L," not the party).

...I recall a TV Guide interview with Howard K. Smith in which he says something similar, that he's a liberal on some issues, a conservative on others. He doesn't say which issues are which, but in his commentaries (which were labeled as such) he was a supporter of the Vietnam War (to the extent that some said ABC stood for the "Administration Broadcasting Network"), took a lot of heat for doing what some saw as a hatchet job on Richard Nixon after Nixon lost the gubernatorial race in California, later did an exclusive interview with Nixon (probably because of his support of the war), and supposedly supported Ed Muskie for the presidency in 1972. I think it fair to say his personal politics were probably on an issue-by-issue basis, rather than supporting one party over the other.

As it should be. We must be issue-vigilant; political partisanship can render us blind, and can even be more toxic than political "slant".

 

[tvnut]

Fenway, that was a great story about the 1968 NH primary.

 

[Fenway1912]

Fenway, that was a great story about the 1968 NH primary.

It was an amazing night. I think about it often and I believe Walter was just thrilled to be away from Manhattan and just trying to get a pulse on the nation.

He had to be bitter over his 'forced retirement' in 1981 when CBS later allowed Mike Wallace and Andy Rooney to stay on.

Tom Brokaw assumed the 'Uncle Walter' role ( with Peter Jennings close behind ) and today Brian Williams stands out.

 

[bpatrick]

According to Wikipedia, Huntley was liberal on social issues, but conservative in regard to government spending and regulation. So projecting if he were still around, he would presumably be pro-choice and pro-gay marriage, but fiscally conservative and pro-deregulation.

Today, he'd probably be considered more of a libertarian (small "L," not the party).

At work now so I can't grab the issue, but I recall a TV Guide interview with Howard K. Smith in which he says something similar, that he's a liberal on some issues, a conservative on others. He doesn't say which issues are which, but in his commentaries (which were labeled as such) he was a supporter of the Vietnam War (to the extent that some said ABC stood for the "Administration Broadcasting Network"), took a lot of heat for doing what some saw as a hatchet job on Richard Nixon after Nixon lost the gubernatorial race in California, later did an exclusive interview with Nixon (probably because of his support of the war), and supposedly supported Ed Muskie for the presidency in 1972. I think it fair to say his personal politics were probably on an issue-by-issue basis, rather than supporting one party over the other.

And yet Smith was the first major anchor in the Watergate era to call for Nixon's resignation.

Someone mentioned that their grandfather never missed Cronkite; neither did mine. Back in the early '70s Smith and Reasoner were on WGHP at 6; Cronkite was on WFMY at 6:30. When I'd visit my grandparents I'd want to watch ABC (I was in the habit, first in Birmingham, then in Tampa, of watching ABC at 6/5), but as soon as Howard K. and Harry were off, my grandfather would say, "Now get the news," meaning "Now get Cronkite." (His loyalty to CBS extended all the way back to Douglas Edwards, at least, and maybe into radio with the Murrow Boys.)

 

[Ultimajock]

At work now so I can't grab the issue, but I recall a TV Guide interview with Howard K. Smith in which he says something similar, that he's a liberal on some issues, a conservative on others. He doesn't say which issues are which, but in his commentaries (which were labeled as such) he was a supporter of the Vietnam War (to the extent that some said ABC stood for the "Administration Broadcasting Network"), took a lot of heat for doing what some saw as a hatchet job on Richard Nixon after Nixon lost the gubernatorial race in California, later did an exclusive interview with Nixon (probably because of his support of the war), and supposedly supported Ed Muskie for the presidency in 1972. I think it fair to say his personal politics were probably on an issue-by-issue basis, rather than supporting one party over the other.

And yet Smith was the first major anchor in the Watergate era to call for Nixon's resignation.

...actually, I think Frank Reynolds beat him to that distinction, even though Reynolds wasn't anchoring at the time...

...for whatever it's worth, my own preference during the Watergate mess was John Chancellor on NBC. Even Cronkite admitted at one point that Chancellor was the best writer among the national anchors...

 

[LKellerIII]

Yes- I recall that Howard K. Smith was conservative on some issues. IIRC - he took a lot of heat from liberals for supporting the Vietnam War.