{"id":62479,"date":"2017-02-09T17:09:27","date_gmt":"2017-02-09T23:09:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/?p=62479"},"modified":"2021-09-26T10:08:59","modified_gmt":"2021-09-26T15:08:59","slug":"lessons-walter-cronkite-lost-art-gravitas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/character\/manhood\/lessons-walter-cronkite-lost-art-gravitas\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons From Walter Cronkite in the Lost Art of Gravitas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Walter<\/a><\/p>\n

Word count: ~10,000<\/em>
\nTime to read: ~45 minutes <\/em><\/p>\n

In ancient Rome, four virtues were considered the chief pillars of excellent manhood and worthy leadership — none of which have a single word in English that entirely encapsulates their full meaning: pietas<\/em> (duty, religiosity, loyalty), dignitas<\/em> (dignity, status, influence, prestige), virtus (<\/em>valor, manliness, excellence, courage, character), and gravitas<\/em> (weight, seriousness, dignity, importance).<\/p>\n

Of these four celebrated virtues, the last is the one that has found its way into our modern language in its ancient, unaltered form — we still speak of such and such a man as having real gravitas.<\/p>\n

This is likely no coincidence, as the trait in many ways encompasses the other three, and is acutely needed in times of instability, uncertainty, and superficiality. For the Romans, gravitas denoted a man’s metaphorical “heaviness” — a strength of purpose, sense of authority, depth of character, and commitment to the task at hand that together formed a structure sturdy enough to bear the weight of his significant responsibilities. A man with gravitas held a position of importance, and used his influence to further the public good. His seriousness, his substance, acted as a counterbalance to all that was fickle, cheap, crass, disposable, flighty — those currents that have only grown stronger in Western society as time has gone on.<\/p>\n

Though we may still use the word gravitas, and crave its greater presence in private citizens and public figures alike, beyond lists of its attendant qualities, it’s still a virtue that’s hard to describe. Like other weighty concepts, you know it when you see it, and it’s easiest to grasp in the illustration of someone else’s example.<\/p>\n

Who then, is a good exemplar of gravitas to study? For me personally, there’s always one man who first comes to mind: Walter Cronkite.<\/p>\n

As a radio reporter, newspaper journalist, television broadcaster, and special correspondent, Cronkite covered the world’s events for over six decades. But it was his nearly twenty-year stint as the anchor of the CBS Evening News<\/em> for which he is best remembered. Each night for nearly two decades, his fatherly visage and authoritative, reassuring voice beamed into millions of households across America, comforting families\u2019 grief during the assassination of JFK, steadying their nerves as astronauts first landed on the moon, and answering their questions about Vietnam.<\/p>\n

Cronkite was called “The Most Trusted Man in America” after a survey found that he was, well, the public figure people trusted most. His presence was so constant, his demeanor so even-keeled, his warmth so genuine and paternal, he was also that rare figure whose name people take to prefacing with “Uncle.” Rarer still, Uncle Walt was respected by folks on both sides of the political aisle, and by those of all ages — from WWII GIs to Vietnam protesters. Many all across the country could identity with the sentiment voiced by Jack Paar, television host and one-time rival to Cronkite, who confessed: \u201cI\u2019m not a religious man. But I do believe in Walter Cronkite.\u201d<\/p>\n

What was the secret to Uncle Walt’s distinct gravitas? Why was his dignified presence such a centering force? How did he manage to command respect from such a wide spectrum of people?<\/p>\n

Today we’ll answer these questions and take a look at Cronkite’s life as a case study in the kind of gravitas every man should emulate, and look for in their leaders.<\/p>\n

Gravitas = An Unadulterated Core of Integrity, Surrounded by Layers of Tempered Rock<\/h3>\n

\u201cAt a time when everybody was lying — fathers, mothers, teachers, presidents, governors, senators — you [Cronkite] seemed to be telling them the truth night after night. They didn\u2019t like the truth, but they believed you at a time when they needed someone to believe.\u201d –Fred Friendly, President of CBS News (1964-66)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At the heart of the nature of gravitas lies a paradox. The trait denotes weight and heaviness, which conjures up the image of a rock. And there indeed must be something immovable about a man who possesses this trait — a pillar of integrity formed at the core of his character. But gravitas cannot be built entirely on dense, impervious stone. The relationship between seriousness and gravitas does not lie on a J-curve, but rather eventually reaches a point of diminishing returns.<\/p>\n

A man who is too <\/em>stiff, in fact becomes more <\/em>brittle; his rigidity makes him prone to fracture; his one-dimensionality diminishes his weight — increasing his shallowness rather than his substance. A man who descends into unadulterated graveness, who takes himself too seriously, to the dissolution of any self-awareness, eventually becomes ridiculous.<\/p>\n

This is the central lesson that emerges from studying Walter Cronkite\u2019s gravitas.<\/p>\n

At the center of his character was a strong sense of honesty and integrity — an undeviating moral compass — as well as an air of dignity and gentility. He was well-mannered, even courtly in his behavior. And this was as true of his on-screen personality as his off-screen one; those who knew him observed that he was the same man in all situations.<\/p>\n

Cronkite\u2019s friend Mickey Hart, drummer for the Grateful Dead (as we\u2019ll see, his surprising relationship with Hart points to the fact there was more to Cronkite than the serious newsman), said of Uncle Walt: \u201cI found Walter to be a real classy, straight-up gent…My father was a common crook. Walter became the father I never had\u2026Walter walked the walk as well as talking the talk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Texas Monthly<\/em> bestowed on him \u201ca kind of innate, Calvinist honesty that can\u2019t be manufactured or affected, and certainly not perverted.\u201d<\/p>\n

When one of his close friends was regularly asked what Cronkite was really like, he\u2019d always answer: \u201cHe\u2019s just the way you hope he is.\u201d<\/p>\n

And when the comic Dick Cavett was tasked with roasting him at an event, he admitted to the difficulty of the task, owing to the paucity of material to work with. \u201cI\u2019m taking the easy way out,\u201d he told the audience. \u201cI\u2019m going to use all the jokes I used at the Mother Teresa roast.\u201d<\/p>\n

In truth, Cronkite wasn\u2019t a saint. Nor was he a monolith of sober solemnity. And this was in fact the key to his distinct gravitas. Around the principled, ethical core of his character, were still other layers of substance — but layers tempered with qualities of lightness, humility, and flexibility — qualities that paradoxically enough, as we will see, added, rather than detracted, from his weight and clout.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s now take a look at the pairs of counterbalancing traits that must each be in place for gravitas to develop.<\/p>\n

Take Your Job\/Role Seriously\u2026<\/h3>\n

\"Walter<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cCronkite can be terribly intense, and he\u2019s very serious about his broadcasts. He\u2019s not one for kidding around.\u201d –Walter Schirra<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are better writers than me, better reporters, better speakers, better-looking people and better interviewers. I don\u2019t understand my appeal. It gets down to an unknown quality, maybe communication of integrity. I have a sense of mission. That sounds pompous, but I like the news. Facts are sacred. I feel people should know about the world, should know the truth as much as possible. I care about the world, about people, about the future. Maybe that comes across.\u201d –Walter Cronkite, after being asked to explain his appeal<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At the very crux of gravitas is a weight and depth of mind, character, and purpose. A man with gravitas shoulders serious responsibilities, and he takes these responsibilities seriously.<\/p>\n

Walter Cronkite brought this \u201cheaviness\u201d to his role as a newsman. With integrity, a strong work ethic, and a desire to get things right, he carried himself as a real professional. He understood and embraced the significance of his role in the culture, and not only intentionally sought the cultivation of greater authority, but strove to direct that influence in a positive direction.<\/p>\n

The ways in which he did this took a variety of forms:<\/p>\n

Have a purpose\/mission.<\/strong> As a high school student and the sports editor of the campus newspaper, Cronkite gleaned journalism lessons in economy, efficiency, and most of all accuracy from a teacher and former reporter who left an indelible impression on the budding newsman. \u201cI had a sense,\u201d Cronkite said of this mentor, \u201cwhenever I was in his presence that he was ordering me to don my armor and buckle on my sword to ride forth in a never-ending crusade for the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the rest of his life, Cronkite saw the business of the \u201cfourth estate\u201d through similarly idealistic eyes — as less of a business at all than a kind of civic service essential to the maintenance of a well-functioning democracy. He saw journalists as having the weighty responsibility to act as a hedge against totalitarianism by presenting citizens with objective, factual, well-investigated information.<\/p>\n

To accomplish this purpose, Cronkite believed, the media had to uphold high standards of dignity, accuracy, and intelligence. And he considered the greatest achievement of his long and storied career to be his contribution towards doing just that.<\/p>\n

Cronkite worked as a reporter in print, radio, and television, and the latter two news sources were just coming of age as he was. As fledging mediums, it was not initially clear how they were going to be used and what kinds of forms and norms the news would take through these channels. Each was initially met with a good deal of not unwarranted skepticism, as the first news broadcasts on both television and radio tended to be short and shallow — a mere parroting of the headlines created by the \u201creal\u201d journalists working at the newspapers.<\/p>\n

Having spent over a decade cutting his journalistic teeth as a wire reporter for the United Press, Cronkite took it as his mission to infuse print journalism\u2019s long-established standards into these new mediums, helping to steer first radio, and then television, in a more substantial direction.<\/p>\n

In his pioneering role as television broadcaster, he sought to counter the perception of anchormen as pretty boy ventriloquists who simply repeated the news that had been gathered by paper journalists and handed to them to read. Unlike his rivals at NBC, Cronkite insisted on maintaining more control over his broadcasts; working as both anchorman and the managing editor of the CBS Evening News<\/em>, he not only voiced the content of the program, but stayed involved in its gathering and editing, allowing him to push for longer and meatier coverage of important stories.<\/p>\n

Cronkite worked as a war correspondent on the ground in Europe during WWII, and if there was anything the experience had taught him, it was that the news could be used for good or ill — as an outlet for authoritarian propaganda, or an enhancer of civic education. Cronkite dedicated his life to trying to position journalism — even the televised variety — towards the latter purpose.<\/p>\n

Choose principles over popularity. <\/strong>Douglas Brinkley, Cronkite\u2019s biographer<\/a>, argues that \u201ccompetitiveness\u201d was the anchorman\u2019s \u201cdefining quality.\u201d He wanted to be the first to break stories, and was driven to make the CBS Evening News<\/em> the number one evening news program in the country.<\/p>\n

But, at the same time, he steadfastly opposed allowing a drive for ratings, and the hunger for profit, to become an excuse for the compromise of principle.<\/p>\n

When it came to breaking stories, his motto was \u201cGet it first, but first get it right<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cronkite had made the decision to resolutely adhere to this code way back at the very beginning of his career, as is well illustrated by an anecdote Brinkley shares from young Walt\u2019s days as a 19-year-old radio reporter:<\/p>\n

\u201cOne day the wife of his boss, Jim Simmons, called the station to report that three firemen had been killed in a blaze in her neighborhood. Simmons rushed to Cronkite\u2019s desk, saying, \u2018Get on the air with a flash! The new city hall is on fire, and three firemen just jumped to their deaths!\u2019 Cronkite, full of protestations and litanies, insisted on checking the facts himself with the fire department by telephone. \u2018You don\u2019t have to check on it,\u2019 Simmons snapped at Cronkite. \u2018My wife called and told me.\u2019 \u2018I do too have to check on it,\u2019 Cronkite said, remembering the fundamentals of journalism instilled in him at San Jacinto High, The Houston Press, and INS. \u2018Are you calling my wife a liar?\u2019 a ticked-off Simmons asked the young Lone Star hotshot. \u2018No,\u2019 Cronkite said, evoking the Standard Model of Professional Journalism. \u2018I\u2019m not calling your wife a liar, but I don\u2019t know the details.\u2019 Simmons was now livid. \u2018I\u2019ve told you the details. The new city hall building\u2019s on fire, and three firemen have jumped.\u2019 With Cronkite resolutely refusing to go on air, Simmons, in a temperamental snit, headed to the microphone himself. Playing the fool, he went on the KCMO airwaves ad-libbing a breaking news bulletin about the supposedly burned firemen. Cronkite\u2019s sleuthing subsequently proved that the fire had been minor. There were no deaths. Nevertheless, the next day, Cronkite was summarily fired by the ego-bruised Simmons.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Rather than being crestfallen, the budding reporter was proud of being canned for sticking to his ethical guns, and carried these same principles forth throughout the entirety of his career. Cronkite ever after chose caution over acclaim, even if it meant another network beat him to a story.<\/p>\n

And even if that story was one of the biggest of the century.<\/p>\n

On the afternoon of November 22, 1963, reports began coming into the CBS newsroom that President John F. Kennedy had been shot by an assassin in Dallas. Although Cronkite desperately wanted to get into the studio and begin broadcasting the news, the camera wouldn\u2019t be ready to begin rolling for at least twenty minutes. So, while the camera was made operational, CBS decided to break into the soap opera then airing — As the World Turns<\/em> — with \u201cbumper slides\u201d announcing a news bulletin, over which Cronkite would read an audio-only announcement.<\/p>\n

Around 2:00 PM EST more bulletins arrived in the newsroom, containing further details on President Kennedy\u2019s condition.<\/p>\n

By this time, the camera was ready, and Cronkite had taken his seat at the newsroom\u2019s anchor desk. He threw out the feed to a reporter from a local affiliate station in Dallas, who gave an unofficial report that JFK was dead; he later repeated this pronouncement, saying it had come from a good source.<\/p>\n

Cronkite, however, did not affirm the report himself.<\/p>\n

The anchorman then received reports that priests had administered the last rites to the president. These were followed by several more bulletins carrying the news that Kennedy had died, including one from CBS\u2019 own correspondent, Dan Rather. CBS Radio News considered his report official enough to declare the president\u2019s passing.<\/p>\n

But Cronkite did not.<\/p>\n

More such \u201cdeath flashes\u201d came in over the wire, including dispatches that cited the word of one of the priests who had been at JFK\u2019s bedside and government sources in D.C. Such reports were considered sufficient by ABC news to officially announce the death of the president.<\/p>\n

Yet Cronkite continued to hold off.<\/p>\n

It was not until 2:38 PM EST, when he received a flash from the Associated Press — a source he considered sufficiently authoritative — that the CBS anchorman made the official announcement that JFK had died.<\/p>\n

Cronkite\u2019s abundance of caution in making the pronouncement was born of his conviction that facts must be checked at least thrice over — and in the case of such a monumental story, even more times than that. The public was seized with anxiety, and conspiracy theories were running wild; Cronkite did not want to add to the tumult by spreading potential misinformation; his job was to cut through the chaos, not inflame it.<\/p>\n

Cronkite\u2019s commitment to discretion continued in the days that came after. He vetoed the idea of airing a re-creation of the shooting a CBS reporter had staged by buying a rifle similar to Oswald\u2019s and positioning himself in the same Book Depository window in which the assassin had fired his deadly shots, and Cronkite further nixed the running of footage taken in the blood-soaked operating room where surgeons had tried to save Kennedy\u2019s life. He considered both proposed pieces as overly sensational, macabre, insensitive to the grieving family of the slain president, and insufficiently newsworthy.<\/p>\n

After Cronkite retired as an anchorman in 1981, he spent the next two decades watching in dismay as such lurid gimmicks became the common stock and trade of television news programs, and the standards he had worked so hard to erect over the course of his career steadily eroded.<\/p>\n

In the twilight of his life, he regularly inveighed against the rising world of \u201cnewstainment\u201d — marked by the single-minded chasing of ratings and its attendant trafficking in gossip over real facts, feel-good stories over hard news, editorializing over objective coverage, dumbed down snippets over meaty features, angry shouting over dignified delivery. \u201cWhat I rail against,\u201d Cronkite declared, \u201cis the Action news, Eyewitness news\u201d — the kind of \u201cformat that diminishes the importance of the story itself in favor of presentation.\u201d He likewise lamented the effect such a format had on the public discourse — the way in which politicians had increasingly begun to speak in soundbites that would play well on such superficial \u201cnews\u201d programs; \u201cNaturally,\u201d the veteran anchorman observed, \u201cnothing of any significance is going to be said in 9.8 seconds.\u201d<\/p>\n

The problem, Cronkite believed, was that modern news organizations were beholden to their stakeholders, who were motivated only by profit, rather than by any sense of greater public responsibility — by any sense of higher purpose.<\/p>\n

\"Walter<\/a><\/p>\n

Do your homework.<\/strong> A man with gravitas doesn\u2019t talk out of his arse, but knows of which he speaks. Further, his grasp of knowledge is so solid, that he is able to clearly distill, interpret, and explain vital information to others.<\/p>\n

When would-be television journalists asked Cronkite for advice on how to find success in the field, the advice he gave was to \u201cRead, read, read.\u201d He thought every newsman had to be eminently well-informed and know something about just about everything, from politics and science to music and sports. He himself was a voracious reader, who was particularly well-versed in American political history.<\/p>\n

The field Cronkite really boned up on, however, was military aviation and aerospace technology. He decided to make the space race his<\/em> beat, and become journalism\u2019s authority on the world of jets, missiles, and rockets. To this end, he pumped government contacts for information, accepted the tutelage of meteorologists and aeronautical engineers, staked out Cape Canaveral, and even read sci-fi novels in order to catch not just the nuts and bolts of aerospace, but a vision of its future potential and cultural meaning. Particularly before the launch of the Apollo 11, Cronkite immersed himself in the details of its spectacularly unprecedented mission to the moon. \u201cNever before had I seen Dad with such thick binders,\u201d his son recalled. \u201cWe all knew he was studying like never before.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Walter<\/p>\n

Though he never graduated college (dropping out after his sophomore year), and in fact failed physics while a student at the University of Texas, this autodidactic education gave Cronkite such a deep understanding of the mechanics of space-bound rockets that he was able to impart his hard-earned knowledge to the American public — who struggled to grasp the intricacies of this almost miraculous feat of human engineering — in a thoroughly accessible way. It was an ability even the passengers on those spacecraft appreciated. As astronaut John Glenn recalled:<\/p>\n

\u201cSpace travel was so new that most people didn\u2019t know how to relate to it. They understood an Indy driver because they knew how to turn a steering wheel right or left. Walter\u2019s gift was helping the public understand the science of space. He was a teacher. His CBS broadcasts were the main factor in the public understanding my mission.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As Brinkley puts it, \u201cCronkite was able to break down aerospace concepts for the average American without dumbing them down.\u201d And he was able to offer his explanations on the fly, ad-libbing his commentary as rockets launched in real time. As Cronkite told the Chicago Daily News<\/em> in 1965, this knack came down, once again, to intensively doing his homework:<\/p>\n

 \u201cI don\u2019t attempt to commit anything to memory, but somehow it gets there. I learn by doing; I don\u2019t learn by reading. I\u2019ve been to the basic sources and tried to talk to people involved in the project. I\u2019ve been to McDonnell Aircraft in St. Louis, where the capsule was made; to Houston, where the astronauts live; to the Martin Company near Baltimore, where the booster was built; to the Goddard Space Center. And I\u2019ve been at Cape Kennedy for this week — talking, taking notes, reading. Then I sit down and write page after page of notes for my background material, organizing it chronologically — pre-launch, launch, orbit, etc. And then what happens is that after I\u2019ve done all that, it\u2019s all there in my mind.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Look & act the part.<\/strong> A concern with appearance may seem antithetical to the virtue of gravitas. After all, isn\u2019t it a function of depth over superficiality?<\/p>\n

But gravitas is a trait that does not exist outside of its perception by others, and externals are the tool by which internal values are communicated. Clothes and demeanor can either enhance or detract from the \u201cweight\u201d one wishes to convey; think of the way a doctor\u2019s coat or a police officer\u2019s uniform plays a significant role in creating an impression of authority. Likewise, when a man is dressed like a schlub or an adolescent, people simply do not take him as seriously.<\/p>\n

This was a conclusion Cronkite reached early in his career. To deliver the sober news, he needed to look like a sober man — a real professional — and he thus kept his mustache well-trimmed, his suits neatly tailored, and his shirts well starched — their French cuffs embroidered with his initials and held together by cufflinks made to look like the CBS \u201ceye.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cronkite intentionally crafted his mannerisms to convey gravitas as well. Whether it was the lowering and raising of his distinguished eyebrows, or the removal and replacement of his glasses, he knew how to use such tics to produce a desired effect.<\/p>\n

This was especially true of the way Cronkite spoke. While the average American talks at a rate of 165 words per minute (and fast talkers clock in at 200 words a minute), Uncle Walt trained himself to speak at a purposeful 124 words a minute during his broadcasts. This composed cadence added weight to his words, and made them easier for viewers to digest. He also made masterful use of the deliberate pause; rather than feeling the need to fill every moment of dead air with the sound of his own voice and the din of mindless commentary, he understood that silence is sometimes the most potent seasoning for speech. While covering an inauguration or the launch of a rocket, Cronkite knew that the best way to highlight the significance of the moment, was often to let it speak for itself.<\/p>\n

From his clothes to his inflections, Cronkite knew how to cultivate the sense of presence so crucial to gravitas. As his friend Mickey Hart put it, \u201cHe was a voice shaman. He had a powerful aura. The voice, glasses, pipe — they were perfect totems.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026But Not Yourself<\/em><\/h3>\n

\"Walter<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWalter was really the class clown. He made us all laugh. He was serious in believing we couldn\u2019t take ourselves too seriously.\u201d –Andy Rooney<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In and of themselves, all the ways mentioned above that Walter Cronkite took seriously his job\/role\/influence would not add up to gravitas. For as mentioned earlier, unadulterated seriousness paradoxically has the effect of making a man seem not uber-weighty, but extremely ridiculous. A man should be committed to grappling with the weightier matters of life, but if this wrestle is not accompanied by an ability to also see and appreciate life\u2019s transience, absurdity, humor, and fun, it becomes hard, to, well, take him seriously. Such one-dimensionality reads as an overweening sense of self-importance, a paucity of perspective, that repulses rather than attracts — that diminishes rather than enhances influence; it\u2019s hard to trust a man who can\u2019t seem to see and appreciate a wide swath of the human experience, who can\u2019t see his own foibles, and who doesn\u2019t carry the sense that all things, no matter how seemingly important in the present, will one day pass away. Without a measure of lightness, the weighty man sinks like a stone.<\/p>\n

Quick, think of a modern television newscaster on FOX or MSNBC who you can imagine laughing at themselves. Right, you can\u2019t do it. Modern news networks are anchored almost exclusively by those who take themselves too seriously, and are thus a gravitas-free zone.<\/p>\n

Cronkite, on the other hand, ran no risk of being entombed by his own heaviness. Despite the sobriety he brought to his broadcasts, he was far from an uptight prig; away from the cameras, he exuded an effervescence that kept him happily floating through eight decades of life, and a humility that leavened his weightiness.<\/p>\n

By cultivating the following two traits, he followed the wise maxim of President Dwight D. Eisenhower: \u201cAlways take your job seriously, never yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Humility.<\/strong> Unlike many of his fellow newscasters, Cronkite never let his ego get too puffed up. Described well by Brinkley as \u201crigorously unpretentious,\u201d he thought that journalism was an important business, but he didn\u2019t mistake the importance of his work for his own personal importance.<\/p>\n

Cronkite\u2019s colleagues at CBS called him \u201cthe eight-hundred-pound gorilla\u201d because his stature allowed him to get pretty much anything he wanted, and he was arguably one of the most powerful men in journalism, and the culture at large. But despite his outsized influence, and cabinets of awards, he never let it all go to his head; disposed to self-deprecation, he was fond of insisting he was \u201conly a newsman\u201d — just a conduit tasked with conveying current events. As Brinkley puts it, \u201cHe was that rare TV reporter who never tried to put himself over the story.\u201d When Cronkite retired, Kurt Vonnegut wrote a tribute to the anchorman appropriately entitled, \u201cA Reluctant Big Shot,\u201d<\/a> in which the author observed that \u201cA subliminal message in every one of his broadcasts was that he had no power and wanted none.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cronkite\u2019s humility was partly rooted in his recognition of his own limitations. While many other journalists seemed to be carried along to success by natural talent and intellect, as a college dropout, Cronkite thought of himself as a kind of tradesman — someone who had to work at his craft to stay on top. He took a practical, nuts and bolts approach to his career and life and thought more about how to do the job at hand, than about himself, declaring, \u201cI never spent any time examining my navel. And I\u2019m bored with people who do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Proud of the way he had started at the bottom of the journalism ladder and climbed his way all the way up, he always maintained a kind of blue collar mentality about his work. As Tom Brokaw wrote of his friend in Time<\/em> magazine:<\/p>\n

\u201cI always had the feeling that if late in life somebody had tapped him on the shoulder and said, \u2018Walter, we\u2019re a little short-handed this week. Think you could help us on the police beat for a few mornings?\u2019 He would have responded, \u2018Boy oh boy — when and where do you want me?\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This down-to-earth attitude kept Cronkite open to feedback; he appreciated when CBS executives gave him honest critiques and he insisted on reading all of the mail he received from viewers himself; when such a letter illuminated an error made or hit upon a sound piece of criticism, Cronkite would write back and own up to the oversight. He readily extended the same courtesy to the politicians he covered on his program, as this example from his biography illustrates:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the CBS Evening News<\/em> accidentally misrepresented a comment that Governor George W. Romney of Michigan made regarding the Black Power movement, Cronkite quickly ate crow. \u2018Your complaint was justified and our handling of the story was not,\u2019 Cronkite wrote to Romney\u2019s press spokesman. \u2018It is neither justification nor rationale but only by way of explanation that the news service copy which carried the Governor\u2019s statement buried the full text of the pertinent remark and our writer and editor missed it. I hope we made amends by seeking an interview with Governor Romney, which was used yesterday with the full text of his observation.\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Walter<\/a><\/p>\n

A sense of humor and fun.<\/strong> Cronkite\u2019s off-camera personality may come as a surprise to those who only imagine him as the buttoned-down CBS anchorman. Away from the studio, he was in fact a playful man, who loved kids, conversation (to the point of labeling himself a \u201changoutologist\u201d), going out on the town, dirty jokes, and having fun. He and his wife, Brinkley, writes, \u201clived for humor,\u201d and Walt had a near-constant \u201cinfectious laugh\u201d that \u201cwasn\u2019t coarse or hearty or even especially loud,\u201d but \u201cjust had an amazing ain\u2019t life somethin\u2019 ring to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Cronkite\u2019s never-ending laughter doesn\u2019t fit the public image of him, members of his circle of friends don\u2019t either. Uncle Walt palled around with Jann Wenner, the founder and editor of Rolling Stone<\/em> magazine, the artist Andy Warhol, and was especially good friends with Mickey Hart, the one-time drummer for the Grateful Dead. Cronkite and Hart not only hung out, but played the drums together, regularly rocking out in the anchorman\u2019s living room. Guests to the Cronkite home would invariably find themselves invited to participate in these drumming jamborees.<\/p>\n

Another, if more expected of Cronkite\u2019s friends, Andy Rooney, penned a piece which celebrated his fellow newsman\u2019s zest for life:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe greatest Old Master in the art of living that I know is Walter Cronkite. Walter works and plays at full speed all day long. He watches whales, plays tennis, flies to Vienna for New Year\u2019s. He dances until 2 a.m., sails in solitude, accepts awards gracefully. He attends board of directors meetings, tells jokes and plays endlessly with his computers. He comes back from a trip on the Queen Mary in time for the Super Bowl. If life were fattening, Walter Cronkite would weigh 500 pounds.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To have real gravitas, you\u2019ve got to be able to appreciate and have experience with the full spectrum of life; you can\u2019t live with one foot already in the grave. There\u2019s a reason a guy like Hitler, who had serious purpose and principles (no matter how nefarious) aplenty, still didn\u2019t exude gravitas, and rather came off as that most peculiar of species — the killjoy clown.<\/p>\n

Be Steady and Reassuring\u2026<\/h3>\n

\"Walter<\/p>\n

\u201cA man lands on the moon. A president dies. Anything. If you can have one man in the world tell it to you, who do you turn on?<\/p>\n

Cronkite.\u201d<\/p>\n

–Fred Friendly<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen our nation has been in trouble or made mistakes and there was a danger that our public might react adversely or even panic on occasion, the calm and reassuring demeanor and voice and the inner character of Walter Cronkite has been reassuring to us all.\u201d –President Jimmy Carter, on the presentation of Cronkite with the Medal of Freedom<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Whether a man has gravitas or not is most clearly revealed in a crisis. If he has it, he rises to the occasion; while others fall apart, his steadiness only increases — he\u2019s the rock in the storm.<\/p>\n

Think of a funeral. In such a situation, the man possessing gravitas is able to keep his composure; with compassionate poise, he delivers bad news; with great stamina, he unflaggingly takes care of what needs to be done; with a minister-like mien, he comforts the mourning; with the sagacity of a wise elder, he helps the grieving make sense of what happened. His is the gravitational force that holds people together. His is the healing hand on every shoulder. His is the presence that imparts reassurance and strength, a belief that life will go on. He is a human hearth that people naturally want to gather round.<\/p>\n

Cronkite\u2019s greatest exhibition of this steadying aspect of gravitas was unarguably in his reporting on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.<\/p>\n

On November 22, 1963, Cronkite was tasked with setting up a kind of televised grieving center, around which Americans could congregate to learn and process the news surrounding their slain president. At the helm of his anchor\u2019s desk, Cronkite was part sea captain traversing the unexpected waves of the event, and part pastor, metaphorically reaching through the screen to place a reassuring hand on the nation\u2019s collective shoulder.<\/p>\n

His was the nearly single-handed responsibility of sorting through — in real time — the bulletins coming in, parsing which could be trusted, putting the various pieces of the story into a cohesive narrative, and determining when to deliver the final announcement of Kennedy\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

When that official news flash finally arrived, Cronkite struggled to maintain his composure as he made the pronouncement; his eyes moist, his throat tight, he removed his glasses, looked first at the audience at home, then at the clock on the wall to record and place the historic moment in time. Replacing his glasses, his voice still filled with emotion, he then proceeded to explain further details as then known.<\/p>\n