A Reporter's Life

Rating:
Summary: One of the last gentleman
Review: A real refreshing work. Mr Cronkite is probably the most creditable newsman we have in America. I applaud his book and his life. His morals and way of life seem to be in the past but if anyone would follow his ways even in this day and age I believe they would be surprised to see the outcome. If this book acts as a inspiration to even one young person, I am sure it was worth the time and effort for its development. Here are wishes for a happy and fruitful retirement for a real gentleman.

Rating:
Summary: Walter Cronkite forever!
Review: A REPORTER'S LIFE
by Walter Cronkite

Recommendation by Renee Cox ([e-mail])

Friday, November 22, 1963. We were living in Montreal, a city of cold and snow. I had one small infant, another on the way, and no car. So I took a taxi (a tremendous extravagance) to my mother-in-law's, where the family were meeting for an early dinner. Just before I left the apartment, a friend phoned me with the news that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. When I could finally get a phone line, I ordered a cab, and on the way over, the cabbie and I listened to the news on his radio.

We walked into the house and I told my mother-in-law what had happened. She had just come home from downtown by bus and said: "I wondered why everyone was stopped on the street." We turned on the television, and, to my utter disbelief, I watched Walter Cronkite in Washington confirming the President's death. As he did so, his voice broke with emotion. I decided then and there I loved this man.

After reading "A Reporter's Life," I haven't changed my opinion.

Despite the book's occasional contradictory ruminations and a closing summary that, although worthy and courageous, was so pedantic it almost lost me, I recommend this book highly. It is, in a word, a treat. I enjoyed the first half, dealing with his youth, more than the second, and I thought it was because I am older than many reviewers, but I have since come across opinions of other, younger readers which put forth the same thought.

Perhaps the reason we prefer the first half is to be found in Cronkite's own words: "[High] incomes must remove the anchorpeople from any pretense of association with or even understanding of the average person...just before World War II...nearly all of us newspeople, although perhaps white collar by profession, earned blue collar salaries. We could identify with the common man because we were him."

Yes, and there are understandable reverberations of ego between the lines of his memoirs. But in view of Cronkite's fame and accomplishments, overall he comes across as a genuinely modest and likable man.

The book is worth reading for the anecdotes alone, which are sharp and witty but never mean. The only time Cronkite takes his gloves off to deliver a full knuckle punch is in the last chapter, when he thumps the cost-cutting, "bottom-line" philosophy of current network bosses who have a separate agenda which puts ratings, stockholders, and advertisers far ahead of anything else. Quality, if it exists there at all, is an afterthought.

However, this final section of the book which criticizes the broadcast news industry and mulls over its future, is didactic in tone. If anyone has earned the write to comment on these issues, it is Cronkite. But it is too bad that the last chapter seems to contain more "tell" than "show."

A small quibble. He says his career cannot be looked back on as a success, because he does not feel he can say, upon reflection: "I made a difference."

Wrong, wrong, wrong. He is looking through a glass, darkly. The last line, when he says people stop him today to ask, "Didn't you used to be Walter Cronkite?" sums it up.

Of course, he always was and always will be Walter Cronkite, and this wonderful book should play its part in ensuring that we never forget him. Vive Cronkite!
---
(Based on the paperback edition: New York: Ballantine Books, 1997. Copyright 1996.)


Rating:
Summary: Fascinating look into the stories behind the news
Review: Although an avid reader of biographies, I am usually not a fan of memoirs that incorporate events of history. I usually find them far too dry and uninteresting with their rigid, chronological structure. A REPORTER'S LIFE by Walter Cronkite, however, is a rare exception. Cronkite narrates his own personal history while touching on many of the most significant events and people of the past 50+ years. Cronkite does so in a engaging and page-turning narrative.

As seen through the eyes of perhaps the most respected and trusted reporter of this century, events such as our involvement in war, particularly Vietnam and the division of our country over it, Watergate, the Nuremberg trials, South Africa, Communism, the first steps toward peace between Egypt and Israel, the beginnings of the Civil Rights movement, the assassination of John Kennedy, the NASA space program, and many more are given a more personal, and sometimes different, perspective than the "history" we have come to know or have been led to believe.

The Kennedys, Menachem Begin, Anwar Sadat, Martin Luther King, Jr., George Patton, Jimmy Hoffa, Neil Armstrong, Rosa Parks, Adolf Hitler, and our presidents: from FDR to George Bush, are just a few of the many figures to be found here. Cronkite not only recounts stories about them, but in many cases gives us heretofore unknown and sometimes surprising insights into these colorful and complex personalities.

I found each of his recollections about these important people and events in history both absorbing and entertaining. Having personally reported on all these events, Cronkite is able to make them come much more alive and make them far more interesting than any typical history book's dry recital of facts and dates.

But it is Cronkite's personal history of the development of media journalism, and his own career in it, that makes for the more compelling story. From his beginnings as a newspaper boy, to newspaper reporter, radio announcer, becoming the first news "anchor" for the CBS Evening News, to the sad state journalism is in danger of becoming, as news stations are taken over by corporate conglomerates, more interested in "entertaining" the public in an effort for higher ratings and profits, than in educating and informing said public, we follow both the neophyte journalism student and newly developing industry as they grow up and mature side-by-side through the intervening years.

A REPORTER'S LIFE is a very fine book. It is highly recommended for anyone interested in the life of one of our most distinguished news reporters and human beings, or a brief, but personal look into the history of media journalism.

Rating:
Summary: His voice still commands attention
Review: As a devotee of the CBS evening news anchored by Walter Cronkite before his retirement, I was pleased to hear his voice again. His tones always seemed to exude confidence and accuracy, leading to his being known as the most trusted man in America. His public statements about the futility of American involvement in Vietnam did as much as anything else to turn American public opinion against the war, a fact that even Lyndon Johnson understood.
He was present at many momentous events of this century, not the least of which was the beginning of both radio and television broadcast journalism. The stories that he recounts are factual, yet sometimes funny as he describes his role in developing two new mediums and how he watched events unfold. Had anyone else read this book, it would have had nowhere near the effect that it does. His is one of the most fascinating careers of all time, as he also had some form of interaction with nearly every major newsmaker of the last century.
One section that I found very interesting was when he was talking about the American presidents. I was very surprised that he ranked Jimmy Carter as the smartest president that he met, and from his statements it appears that the rest are considered a distant second While he was polite enough to avoid direct criticism of Ronald Reagan, it was clear that he does not have a high opinion of Reagan's intellect. His role in bringing about the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt was something that I had not known until now. It is an event that should be extensively examined by every journalism major.
If his career was examined in depth, it is possible that Walter Cronkite would be placed in the upper echelons of the most influential people of the last century. The changes that he helped bring about were more subtle, yet no less significant. From this tape, you get only a glimpse of that influence, but it still demonstrates how important he was to the flow of history.

Rating:
Summary: One of the Best I've Read Lately
Review: As one can see from my reviews, I am a prolific reader on many subjects. This truly is an enjoyable, well-done, interest captivating book by one of my and most of America's heroes.

He writes concisely and passionately like he delivered the news. He evokes trust and enthusiasm for what he talks about, here his life and career in broadcasting, both of which I enjoyed immensely.

Amazing life and the stories that go with being around the news and newsmakers as they happen. Especially enjoyed the story of what Walter describes as "the world's first aerial hijacking" which he plays a role in the capture of the perpetrator. Also memorable was the story in Holland of the people there having disassembled a teletyper prior to the German occupation, which they subsequently reassembled, allowing Cronkite to be back on-line quicker than others.

Especially was I touched with his childhoold experiences, both the incident with his father and the other drugstore delivery boy who was killed for racial reasons. This shows the ugliness of our past, which we as Americans should be ashamed and help to rectify in our lifetime.

The story of the war started by whale flatulentions is fascinating, as well as the not publized comment by astronaut Wally Schirra perched upon the Mercury flight and thinking to himself: "Good God, just think, this thing was built by the lowest bidder."

His critique of television and news is fascinating reality of behind the scenes. His honesty and passion for the purity of the news is admirable and why America trusted him like no other, except maybe for some of the upcoming Fox News reporters.

His career will be remembered for the Kennedy assasination, the moon landing and NASA early launces, the Vietnam war and other major news events. Thank you Walter for all those precious moments that "we were there" with you. Thank you for this great read!

Rating:
Summary: The Man Who Killed American Soldiers
Review: General Weyand presented this speech at the GEORGE CATLETT MARSHALL MEMORIAL RECEPTION AND DINNER for the Association of the United States Army Convention, held in Washington, DC on October 18, 2000 GEORGE CATLETT MARSHALL MEMORIAL RECEPTION AND DINNER Association of the United States Army Convention
Washington, DC October 18, 2000
"After Tet, General Westmoreland sent Walter Cronkite out to interview me. I was in Command of the Forces in the South around Saigon and below and I was proud of what we'd done. We had done a good job there. So, Walter came down and he spent about an hour and a half interviewing me. And when we got done, he said, "well you've got a fine story. But I'm not going to use any of it because I've been up to Hue. I've seen the thousands of bodies up there in mass graves and I'm determined to do all in my power to bring this war to an end as soon as possible." It didn't seem to matter that those thousands of bodies were of South Vietnamese citizens who had been killed by the Hanoi soldiers and Walter wasn't alone in this because I think many in the media mirrored his view. It was a far different situation for me than when I was in Korea with my Battalion. I had a fellow named John Randolph who was an Associated Press Correspondent. He literally lived with our Battalion and he wrote about the men in a way that was good for them. It raised their morale. He never undercut their effort nor maligned the cause for which they fought. He became like one of them. He was awarded the Silver Star for Valor for helping them retrieve wounded and dead from the field of battle under fire. When I was in Paris at the Peace Talks, it was the most frustrating assignment I think I ever had. Sitting in that conference, week after week listening to the Hanoi negotiators, Le Duc Tho and his friends lecture us. Reading from the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Herald Tribune, the Atlanta Constitution, NBC, CBS, you name it. Their message was always the same. "Hey, read your newspapers, listen to your TV. The American people want you out of Vietnam. Now, why don't you just go ahead and get out?" So finally a Peace Agreement was signed that everyone knew would be violated and with no recourse or hope of enforcement on our part.

Walter Cronkite, the 'Reporter's Life' is a fraud, weak in story and rambles on and on about his sailing boat. In his first ever, televised editorial about the evnst of Tet 1968 barely offer a page in his book. He was not balanced or based on any facts whatsoever his fact-finding few days to Vietna during Tet 1968. It was his "personal opinion" telling his audience and or our government what he thought about foreign affairs. Sounds a lot like what is going on today with the media being more entertainment than news? It's like actors today criticizing American soldiers and Marines in Iraq. The massive numbers of dead were South Vietnamese that were murdered by the Viet Cong terrorists meant nothing to these liberal evil do-gooders like Cronkite, John Kerry and Hanoi Fonda. The "Killing Fields of Cambodian" mean nothing to these liberal holier-than-thou, know-it-alls. People who worshiped Mr. Cronkite as a so-called "fatherly figure" jumped on his bandwagon like Jane Fonda and college hippies. Walter had a new following of young minded zombies for peace.

As Richard Rowere wrote in his book, WAIST DEEP IN THE BIG MUDDY, "This is the first war of the century of which it is true that opposition to it is not only widespread but fashionable."

Sleep well Walter and that's the rest of the story he omitted in a 'Reporter's Spoiled Life.'

Rating:
Summary: Starts slow but picks up
Review: His personal story blends well with historical events. Sort of a very readable history book as well as a memoir.

Rating:
Summary: Nothing new
Review: I enjoyed the book. But I felt the book lacked any new insights into all of the history this author lived through. While the book gave some interesting background on the author's family, the rest of it was like watching reruns of the 6:30 news.

It left me wanting more of what wasn't there.

Rating:
Summary: Nothing new
Review: I enjoyed the book. But I felt the book lacked any new insights into all of the history this author lived through. While the book gave some interesting background on the author's family, the rest of it was like watching reruns of the 6:30 news.

It left me wanting more of what wasn't there.

Rating:
Summary: Half the story
Review: I grew up on "Uncle Walter" and otherwise enjoyed this book.

However-- the big "however"-- is, why is there no mention in Cronkite's autobiography of his having grown up in "Klan Country." How did those bigots near Kansas City influence Walter Cronkite as a young man?

I am a simple caucasian.