Today's Google Doodle honors Walter Cronkite:

[femmocrat]

If you were alive in the 1960s or '70s, you tuned in to "Uncle Walter" on your TV for the most important news of the day.

Known as "the most trusted man in America," Walter Cronkite was a legendary broadcast journalist many turned to for decades to get the latest news on World War II, Watergate and the Vietnam War, among other things. In honor of the 100th anniversary of his birth Friday, Google created an animated Doodle highlighting some key moments in his career, including his memorable reports on the assassination of President John Kennedy and the Apollo 11 moon landing.

Cronkite, who reported for CBS from 1950 until his retirement in 1981, is remembered for embodying a reporting approach based in objectivity, accuracy, fairness and integrity. He was also an outspoken advocate for respecting the standards of responsible journalism.

More at link: https://www.cnet.com/news/google-doodle-honors-centennial-of-walter-cronkites-birth/

[pressbox69]

1. Well we all make mistakes...

...even Walter, Playhouse90 and I think Jim McKay were involved with this mistake. At least back then a shameless showman only pushed his product and not his way into the White House.


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4190785

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. It was great to see Google honoring him. About time! n/t

[malthaussen]

3. One thing I have always held against Mr Cronkite...

... back when he was making his bones as a war correspondent in WWII, he and seven other guys were trained to go out on bombing missions with the 8th AF. Well, there were two kinds of bombers used by the 8th, the glamorous B-17 "Flying Fortress" and the ugly B-24 "Liberator." There were actually more of the latter than the former, because they carried a heavier bomb load. They also, unfortunately, had a lower survival rate.

The B-17 got all the press. It was a morale problem: the men in the B-24 squadrons felt their contribution was being ignored, while they were also suffering greater casualties. The press officer for the 8th explained this to Walter and the boys, and asked that at least some of them go out on B-24s. Except for Robert P. Post of the NYT, they all refused, and went with B-17s. Including Walter.

In one of those cosmic ironies that verifies O'Toole's Corollary, that B-24 was the only plane with reporters that didn't return from the mission. (Oldenburg, 26 Feb 1943) Andy Rooney's did get hit by flak, but they didn't call them "Flying Fortresses" for nothing.

Not that I would wish Mr Cronkite shot down over Germany, but that he refused to write about the B-24 men when specifically asked to, and went with the attention-grabbing story, disappoints me.


-- Mal