A look back at local, national and world events through Deseret News archives.
On March 6, 1981, Walter Cronkite signed off for the last time after nearly two decades as the anchor of the ”CBS Evening News.”
With his signature phrase: “And that’s the way it is.”
The front page story on the Deseret News said it all: “After tonight, Walter, that’s the way it was.”
The man once called “the most trusted man in America” later did a celebrity conductor gig with The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square.
“Cronkite, the premier TV anchorman of the networks’ golden age who reported a tumultuous time with reassuring authority and came to be called ‘the most trusted man in America,’ died Friday. He was 92,” read his Associated Press obituary in 2009.
“Cronkite was the face of the ‘CBS Evening News’ from 1962 to 1981, when stories ranged from the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to racial and anti-war riots, Watergate and the Iranian hostage crisis.
“It was Cronkite who read the bulletins coming from Dallas when Kennedy was shot Nov. 22, 1963, interrupting a live CBS-TV broadcast of the soap opera ‘As the World Turns.’”
Cronkite’s time in Utah
In 2002, Cronkite came to Salt Lake City to serve as narrator for the annual Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert. Like other guest performers, he visited with the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — President Gordon B. Hinckley and his counselors, President Thomas S. Monson and President James E. Faust. “In that room, there was the collected wisdom of the ages — 335 years in all that day.”
Here are some stories from Deseret News archives about Cronkite, his journalism style, his visits to Utah and the state of news reporting today:
“Legendary CBS anchor Walter Cronkite dies at 92″
“Cronkite’s eloquent style a thing of the past”
“Walter Cronkite’s time in Utah remarkable”
“Scott D. Pierce: Cronkite was a legend”
“Cronkite still regrets giving up career in ‘81″
“Cronkite criticizes media for emphasis on profit”
“‘It was a day like all days’”
“Cronkite’s passing: A death in everyone’s family”
“Cronkite remembers days when he was a Pup”
“Journalism a far cry from what it used to be”
