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Obama eulogizes 'most trusted' Cronkite (AFP)
NEW YORK (AFP) – US President Barack Obama Wednesday eulogized news legend Walter Cronkite as a paragon of trust and integrity and the antithesis of the "celebrity gossip" and "instant commentary" of today's media. Obama made a quick trip to New York to remember revered CBS news anchor Cronkite, who died in July, aged 92, and praised him as a "voice of certainty in a world that was growing more and more uncertain. "He never lost the integrity or the plainspoken speaking style that he gained growing up in the heartland," Obama said at Cronkite's memorial service in the Lincoln Center in New York. "He was a familiar and welcome voice that spoke to each and every one of us personally." Obama compared Cronkite's world with today's generation of reporters, and the television channels, print outlets and web-based media that employ them. "It may have seemed inevitable that he was named the most trusted man in America, but here's the thing: that title wasn't bestowed on him by a network. We weren't told to believe it by some advertising campaign. "It was earned. It was earned by year after year and decade after decade of painstaking effort, a commitment to fundamental values, his belief that the American people were hungry for the truth, unvarnished and unaccompanied by theater or spectacle. He didn't believe in dumbing down; he trusted us." Obama said that such a standard was harder to find in a modern media world dominated by instant comment and reaction, loose sourcing and constrained budgets. "Just as the news cycle has shrunk, so has the bottom line. "Too often we fill that void with instant commentary and celebrity gossip and the softer stories that Walter disdained rather than the hard news and investigative journalism he championed. "What happened today is replaced with who won today. The public debate cheapens; the public trust falters." The service, attending by luminaries from the world of politics, including former president Bill Clinton, and news, also featured trumpeter Wynton Marsalis leading a band in a New Orleans jazz-style procession. Cronkite, presenter of the CBS Evening News program from 1962-1981, became known as "the most trusted man in America" for his calm and honest delivery during a tumultuous time in US history. Events during that period included civil rights unrest, the assassination of president John F. Kennedy, the Vietnam war, the Moon landing, the Cold War, and the Watergate scandal that toppled president Richard Nixon. It was also a period when broadcast networks ruled supreme in the United States, making Cronkite a truly national figure. |