All Blog Posts from Couric & Co.

Walter Cronkite died one week ago, and while we mourn the loss, it's been wonderful to see such exuberant and heartfelt tributes all across the country.

But I had to smile albeit, a tad ruefully, and I think he would too when I saw The New York Times correcting a piece that had appeared following his death.

The article contained not one, not two, but seven errors about his life and career.

While he may have relished the report that he'd stormed the beaches on Normandy on D-Day, he was actually in a warplane high above.

And Walter's coverage of Neil Armstrong's giant leap for mankind came on July 20th, 1969. Not July 26th.

And Walter, like my Dad, worked for UP during the war. It didn't become UPI till a merger years later.

The paper issued a correction that seemed as long as the article itself.

Walter Cronkite used to say "get it first, but get it right."

So as we say goodbye to the Dean of TV news, let's all remember as journalists when we say "that's the way it is" - it really is.

That's a page from my notebook.

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.

Evening News anchor Katie Couric was honored for her "extraordinary, persistent and detailed multi-part interviews with Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin" which judges called a "defining moment in the 2008 presidential campaign."

She was given an award for Special Achievement for National Impact on the 2008 Campaign.

The award was given by Reliable Resources, a group run out of the USC Annenberg Normal Lear Center at the University of Southern California. It's mission statement says "Reliable Resources was created to help generate conversation and ideas on improving broadcast political coverage. Broadcast news, network and local, has declined significantly as a primary source for campaign news. Our project seeks to design and distribute tools which would make political news enlightening, informative and exciting to local and network broadcasters."

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The voice at the beginning of The CBS Evening News is as close to the voice of God in the news business as you can get. It’s Walter Cronkite -- the Walter Cronkite who was nice enough to introduce yet another follower in the anchor chair that he invented. It is more than an inspiration to me, it’s a good luck charm as well, and the hair stands up on the back of my neck every time I hear it.

There is a special on CBS tonight that I was a small part of. It's called "That's The Way It Is: Celebrating Cronkite At 90. I hope you will tune in at 8:00pm ET to visit again with the man that held our hand through the last half of the 20th century. It is an incredibly moving hour, not only because of our collective love for Walter Cronkite, but for the history he brought to us through the window of The CBS Evening News each night.

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Before it slips our mind: tomorrow marks the 90th birthday of a certain CBS News legend.

As he enters his 10th decade, the "C&C" staff raises a glass to wish him a happy birthday.

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One of the more persistent (and surprising) questions we get in the "C&C" mailbag concerns the CBS Evening News announcer. "Who is that we hear at the beginning of the show?," people write. "He sounds familiar."

And so he should. He's the guy in the middle of the picture -- a previous occupant of the anchor chair.

Now you know: that's the way it is.

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