In the days since we heard the news about Walter Cronkite's death, we've resurrected some pretty old fashioned words: decency, honor, integrity. Those are the things the most trusted man in America stood for. The accolades have been pouring in from people like George Herbert Walker Bush, who called him a "towering, respected figure," to Ben Bradlee, the former editor of the Washington Post who said Walter validated his paper's reporting on Watergate. If it was important enough for him, Bradlee suggested, it made the whole country stand up and take notice. The Kennedy assassination, the civil rights movement, the space program, Vietnam - chapters of American history through which he held our hand and made sense of it all.No network or cable anchor will ever take his place. But to honor Walter, we can continue to uphold the standards he established when TV was the exciting new technology of the moment. We can all strive for excellence - to be the kind of player he was, even if we're doing it on a smaller field.
That's a page from my notebook.
