

Walter Cronkite has just died at 92  - Godflesh
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/17/walter.cronkite.dead/

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quizbiz
I'm young and not originally from the US so he's a man I know of solely due to
reputation. Various people always speaking of him with great esteem. I always
(and continue to) wonder(ed) what about him made him so notable.

~~~
zimbabwe
He was called the most trusted man in America. For a long time he was the most
famous anchor on television, back when TV was how most people got their news.
He had a stalwart reputation, which is rare among anchors (especially compared
to the current batch).

~~~
quizbiz
I'm just trying to figure out why. What did he do to earn such trust? Watching
the news reports coming in I'm learning. Sad that it has to come to this but
am I correct in saying that the way he reported about the war in Vietnam had a
lot to do with it?

~~~
evgen
He was the CBS news anchor when the transition from 15 min to 30 min nightly
news occurred in the US (back when there were only three channels to watch),
and he held his anchor chair for around two decades. Some of his reputation is
due to being the product of the times (e.g. being the face of the most-watched
news show during the growth of TV news to become the dominant news source in
the country) and some of it was through conscious decisions he made to "tell
it like it is." He was the first major news figure to tell the American
population that the vietnam war was unwinnable. His distinctive, sonorous
voice was also a big help.

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plinkplonk
hmm so we have a front page news item on HN everytime a celebrity dies.
Michael Jackson was a music "hacker", Cronkite was a news "hacker" ...

Hooray for all the future "Celebrity who was really an [X] "hacker" passes
away " articles on HN!

~~~
pg
Will you give it a rest? Someone doesn't have to be a hacker to be worth
remembering here, just as stories don't have to be about hacking to be posted
here.

~~~
plinkplonk
" Someone doesn't have to be a hacker to be worth remembering here, just as
stories don't have to be about hacking to be posted here."

I posted this a while ago, making the same point

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=711362>

In other words, I agree with you, pg ! I am all for intellectually fascinating
stories on the HN front page. ;-)

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Oompa
Before anyone asks why this is on Hacker News, he was a news reporter hacker.

~~~
Scriptor
So is everyone who becomes famous in their respective field a "hacker"? What
were his innovations? Did he come up with some clever new way of doing the
news?

Just because you're good at something doesn't make you a "hacker".

~~~
plinkplonk
"So is everyone who becomes famous in their respective field a "hacker"? "

No, but you see, the death of (US based) celebrities is of great interest to
hackers worldwide under the

"On Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes
more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the
answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. "

guideline, because such deaths are, of course, gratifying to intellectual
curiosity.

Strangely enough this bit of the guidelines doesn't seem to be having an
effect

"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're
evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters,
or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-
topic. "

