“And that’s the way it is.”
July 19, 2009

His death was not a surprise, but when the announcement came of Walter Cronkite’s passing many of us no doubt wiped a tear or two from our eyes. He was the epitome of news, the standard of serious television journalism. Though he was not the first new media personality—Edward R. Murrow holds that honor—he believed, as Murrow did, that journalistic standards were key to radio and television news. At all times Cronkite was aware of his influence, and he took his responsibilities to the public seriously.

You can see him in various YouTube videos embedded in online tributes to him—announcing President Kennedy’s shooting and death, Lyndon Johnson’s oath of office, the first landing on the moon, Martin Luther King’s death. I recall what seemed to be endless Friday nights around the dinner table, watching and listening to his soothing voice reading out that week’s Vietnam death statistics. Inevitably, there were thousands for the Vietcong and less than 100 for Americans. And even at that young age, I wondered, though I never asked, why if the proportions were so unbalanced we never seemed to get ahead. Was the “enemy” manufacturing so many soldiers that thousands could be killed every week with no apparent impact? I felt oddly disturbed by these calmly reported numbers. I sensed I was being fed information from a trusted source but I also wondered why there was no analysis of the numbers,  and no questioning of them. I was supposed to swallow this information whole? Every week? Even in school it was never discussed. It was almost as if because it was being told to us by Walter Cronkite that it was fact and therefore not to be questioned.

Once I turned nineteen and moved out on my own I no longer saw Cronkite regularly. But there were parts of his broadcasts no one missed, even if those of us in the commune, having no television, had to go elsewhere to see them—the murders of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, the first moon landing, the Watergate scandal, the infamous 1968 Democratic convention. It was a peculiar juxtaposition for me. I was actively involved in anti-war demonstrations, in counseling draft evaders, in protesting the policies of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, yet I was also, when I could, watching and listening to “the most trusted man in America” telling me his perspective on these same issues. What I saw and what I heard from him could be at odds with my own experiences, yet I never, even at moments of intense disagreement, lost my respect for him both as a man and as a newscaster.

In 1994, Cronkite, retired from his CBS anchoring position, talked with the American Journalism Review about his increasingly pessimistic—or what he termed his “less optimistic”—views of television’s impact on people, culture and the country:   

We’ve got a great percentage of our population that, to our great shame, either cannot or, equally unfortunate, will not read. And that portion of our public is growing. Those people are suckers for the demagogue. . . . It just goes back to Thomas Jefferson: The nation that expects to be ignorant and free . . . expects what never can and never will be.

If a public understands the limitations of television, the limitations of print, deadline pressures, all the rest of the things that go into the making of a newspaper or broadcast, then that public will be far less likely to fall into a demagogue’s trap when the demagogue attacks the press for its unfairness.

With Cronkite’s passing we as a nation have lost more than a man or a brilliant journalist, a wise newscaster, or a beloved (and trusted) intellectual. We have lost a moral and philosophical compass. It strikes me that there is an irony in some or perhaps most of the memorials to him. What he is being remembered for—his contributions to serious television journalism, his attempts to remind people that education requires reading and skepticism in equal doses—is being reported by a media dominated by speed, fragmentation and personality.

Upcoming Book Festivals:
In Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood is the Newberry Library, which will be hosting its 25th Annual Newberry Book Fair from July 23-26 Though not a traditional book fair like those usually highlighted here—it is a used book sale—this fair is worth nothing for its large number of books (110,00) and its five-day run. They also have an amusing blog that even if you are not in the area is well worth reading. 

The Pub House:
Barricade Books publishes books that “test the boundaries of the First Amendment, ultimately strengthening it and protecting our personal freedom.” Translation: they probably have something guaranteed to offend everyone. But a publisher committed to not only making a profit but to protecting free speech means that the nonfiction they publish is likely to be outside the norm, and thus interesting. As of this writing, their catalog pages were not working but the home pages lists five books. Due out in October, Unreasonable Men: A Father & Son Who Changed America, The Birth of the National Enquirer will be a look at one of America’s most popular magazines. And for crime history buffs, Nitti is a real-life exploration of one of the Capone era’s most effective enforcers and leaders alongside his pop culture persona.  

Of Interest:
Starry Messenger: Observing the Heavens in the Age of Galileo is the current exhibition at Yale University’s Beinecke Library. Even if you are not within the physical vicinity of Yale, it is possible to enjoy this lovely tour of engravings, charts, diagrams, and texts that comprised the knowledge of astronomy from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. The title of the exhibition comes from Galileo Galilei’s Sidereus Nuncius (Starry Messenger), in which is  depicted the cratered moon, the four satellites of Jupiter, and other “previously opaque features of the heavens.” It is organized into four chronological periods that correspond, roughly, to important astronomical experiences, and is simply beautiful!   

This Week . . .
is a good time, for those of you who live in or near the Bay area, to sign up for the San Francisco Independent Bookstore Tour that will take place on July 25. There is no cost for the tour. Participants will receive a free book bag from the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association with goodies inside. The tour meets at Get Lost, a specialty bookstore that specializes in travel guides, travel literature, international literature, and maps. Other stops include The Green Arcade, a new bookstore focusing on sustainable living, green architecture, energy, the slow food movement, and organics;  Great Books Symposium, a bookstore that loves classics in different translations and editions, and space for multi-week symposiums on literature; Books Inc., which carries a wide array of fiction and nonfiction as well as a good selection of LGBT titles; and The Booksmith, a San Francisco institution. The tour guides are knowledgeable, well-read book specialists who promise to enlighten and entertain. To sign up, contact Lost Books at .

Until next week, read well, read often and read on!

Lauren