Quotes by Walter Cronkite

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.

Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation.

I think being a liberal, in the true sense, is being nondoctrinaire, nondogmatic, non-committed to a cause - but examining each case on its merits. Being left of center is another thing; its a political position. I think most newspapermen by definition have to be liberal; if theyre not liberal, by my definition of it, then they can hardly be good newspapermen. If theyre preordained dogmatists for a cause, then they cant be very good journalists; that is, if they carry it into their journa

Americas health care system is neither healthy, caring, nor a system.

We are not educated well enough to perform the necessary act of intelligently selecting our leaders.

The least of us is improved by the things done by the best of us, because if we are not able to land at least we are able to follow. (July 20, 1969 CBS Moon Landing Coverage)

The least of us is improved by the things done by the best of us, because if we are not able to land at least we are able to follow. (July 20, 1969 CBS Moon Landing Coverage)” ― Walter Cronkite

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 ones 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.

Justice was born outside the home and a long way from it and it has never been adopted there.

Part of the new morality of the 60s and 70s is a new attitude toward homosexuality. The homosexual men and women have organized to fight for acceptance and respectability.

I cant go into a mob scene and sense the mood and the attitude of the crowd. I cant conduct man-on-the-street interviews or even get reactions that I can be sure are honest, because they know who I am.

I covered the Vietnam War. I remember the lies that were told, the lives that were lost - and the shock when, twenty years after the war ended, former Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara admitted he knew it was a mistake all along.

I think that the failure of newspaper competition in a community is a very serious handicap to the dissemination of the knowledge that the citizens need to participate in a democracy.

The democratic system is challenged by the failure in television because our evening news programmes have gone for an attempt to entertain as much as to inform in the desperate fight for ratings.

Journalism is what we need to make democracy work.

In journalism, we recognize a kind of hierarchy of fame among the famous. We measure it in two ways: by the length of an obituary and by how far in advance it is prepared. Presidents, former presidents, and certain heads of state are at the top of the chain.

Sometimes a famous subject may even outlive his own obituary writer.

We the people have the strength to bring our country from our weak-kneed stumbling gait in the last ranks of reason to the leadership of the great march to environmental victory.

In seeking truth you have to get both sides of a story.

I want to say that probably 24 hours after I told CBS that I was stepping down at my 65th birthday, I was already regretting it. And I regretted it every day since.