Cronkite News Quotes & Sayings

The rule of thumb for all news operations is that stories are assigned their importance on the basis of what affects or interests the greatest number of one's readers or viewers. Depending on the nature of the newspaper or broadcast, the balance between what "affects" and what "interests" is quite different. The first criteria of a responsible newspaper such as The New York Times is going to be that which their readers need to know about their world that day - those developments that in one way or another might affect their health, their pocketbooks, the future of themselves and their children. The first criterion of the tabloid is that which "interests" its readers - gossip, sex, scandal. — Walter Cronkite

We have no authoritative figure, no Walter Cronkite or Edward R. Murrow whom we all listen to and trust to sort out contradictory claims. Instead, the media is splintered into a thousand fragments, each with its own version of reality, each claiming the loyalty of a splintered nation. — Barack Obama

Cronkite had mastered the intentional pause, the need for frozen seconds of long silence at certain historic moments. Nobody before or after Cronkite had mastered the art of communicating news on television nightly without ever becoming an irritant. — Douglas Brinkley

In all my years as a news commentator I was never once, able to tell the truth, about anything. — Walter Cronkite

I don't think people ought to believe only one news medium. They ought to read and they ought to go to opinion journals and all the rest of it. I think it's terribly important that this be taught in the public schools, because otherwise, we're gonna get to a situation because of economic pressures and other things where television's all you've got left. And that would be disastrous. We can't cover the news in a half-hour event evening. That's ridiculous. — Walter Cronkite

Everything is being compressed into tiny tablets. You take a little pill of news every day - 23 minutes - and that's supposed to be enough. — Walter Cronkite

News reporters are certainly liberal and left of center. — Walter Cronkite

As anchorman of the CBS Evening News, I signed off my nightly broadcasts for nearly two decades with a simple statement: "And that's the way it is." To me, that encapsulates the newsman's highest ideal: to report the facts as he sees them, without regard for the consequences or controversy that may ensue. — Walter Cronkite

Walter Cronkite was a personally decent and convivial man, who literally couldn't kill a fly, was kind to his children, generally helpful to juniors, authentically curious about the news, and, in his time, an energetic reporter. — Conrad Black

I've always loved watching the news on TV. As a kid, I loved watching Walter Cronkite, for some reason. — Will Ferrell

A newspaper may somewhat arrogantly assert that it prints "all the news that's fit to print." But no newspaper yet has been moved to declare at the end of each edition, "That's the way it is," as Walter Cronkite does. — Eugene McCarthy

I felt that I had been driven from the temple where for nineteen years, along with other believers, I had worshiped the great god News on a daily basis. — Walter Cronkite

watched in horror until Walter Cronkite finally announced the news that Kennedy was dead. The boys didn't try to argue about the stupidity of the ancient Hebrews again. — Katherine Paterson

If that is what makes us liberals, so be it, just as long as in reporting the news we adhere to the first ideals of good journalism
that news reports must be fair, accurate and unbiased. — Walter Cronkite

Learning from their children is the best opportunity most people have to assure themselves of a meaningful old age. Sadly, most do not take this opportunity. — M. Scott Peck

A pun does not commonly justify a blow in return. But if a blow were given for such cause, and death ensued, the jury would be judges both of the facts and of the pun, and might, if the latter were of an aggravated character, return a verdict of justifiable homicide. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

I have never pretended to be a great writer. I am totally immodest about being a great reporter and a good news writer. I write fast and I write accurately, nearly as accurately as anybody can be, and that's my skill. — Walter Cronkite

Everything about a date is weird, especially if it's a new person you don't really know. You want to take them somewhere you think they're going to like, but you don't want to ask that question because you want to look like you're in control of the situation. So I think dates are just weird in general. — Matt Cohen

I am a news presenter, a news broadcaster, an anchorman, a managing editor - not a commentator or analyst. I feel no compulsion to be a pundit. — Walter Cronkite

She was no longer the fair-haired, colourless girl whom I had seen at the church fifteen years before, but a stout, over-dressed lady, one of those ladies with no age, no character, no elegance, no wit, nor any of the attributes that constitute a woman. She was merely a mother, a fat, commonplace mother, the breeder, the human brood-mare, the procreating machine made of flesh, with no interests but her children and her cookery-book. — Guy De Maupassant

Tuxedo Guy looked even better the closer he got to us- tall wide shoulders, smooth skin, those lips. — Myra McEntire

A handful of us determine what will be on the evening news broadcasts, or, for that matter, in the New York Times or Washington Post or Wall Street Journal. Indeed it is a handful of us with this awesome power.And those [news stories] available to us already have been culled and re-culled by persons far outside our control. — Walter Cronkite

Everybody who's in the news business today was influenced in a positive way by Walter Cronkite. He had ability, humility and integrity, a rare combination. — Roger Ailes

We pass a church with a massive blue neon cross, and I am spiritually lifted by feelings of great religiosity. No, I'm not, for crying out loud. Don't be ridiculous. But what I do love about this road is how the gaudy becomes grand, how tastelessness is a way of everyday life. You have to admire how these people shamelessly try to get your attention as you drive by, whether they're trying to feed you a hamburger or a savior. (p.37) — Michael Zadoorian

Me, I have a science fiction writer's conviction that the damn robot is supposed to speak
human, not the other way around. — Spider Robinson