'Man on the moon'... 'That's the way it is'... 'Good day!'

How ironic that just two days before the 40th anniversary of the first manned landing on the moon the man many of us associate most with the reporting of the U.S. program died. And, Walter Cronkite's passing followed by just a few months that of another broadcast icon... Paul Harvey.<br /> <br /> Who among those of us who grew up in the 1950s and early 1960s can forget the space race with the Soviet Union? Russia had been first with so many space accomplishments - the first satellite, the first animal in space, the first human, etc. And, many of us expressed skepticism when President Kennedy set a goal in 1961 of putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade. But we did it.<br /> <br /> For me, the words "Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed" had more of an impact than did "That's one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for Mankind." The phrase "Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed" followed by Cronkite's "Man on the moon!" declaration said it all. And, who better to tell us about it than "Uncle Walter."<br /> <br /> It was 1969 and he was at the height of his dominance in television news as anchor of the CBS Evening News. He had covered it all - the Kennedy assassination, the Viet Nam War, and the space race... culminated by the moon landing. My first remembrance of Cronkite comes from films of the old You Are There television series from the early 1950s which were were shown to us in junior high school 8-10 years later. If you are not familiar with them, Cronkite opened and closed each piece which, as I recall, centered around a historic event that occurred long before television, focusing on how it would have been covered by television.<br /> <br /> Only twice do I recall Cronkite crossing that sacred line separating a reporter from an editorial writer - when he criticized the Viet Nam War in a piece labeled an "editorial" and when, with some glee, he urged the Apollo 11 spacecraft onward as it lifted off four days before landing on the moon July 20, 1960. He did tear-up in announcing Kennedy's assassination but as I recall never lost his cool and never injected a verbal comment that could be called "an opinion."<br /> <br /> Paul Harvey on the other hand did both on a regular basis - deliver the news and offer commentary/opinion on it. Harvey even did commercials most of his ABC Network career... a rarity among most broadcast journalists (certainly Cronkite never did them). <br /> <br /> I grew up listening to Harvey's broadcasts... not necessarily by choice. <br /> <br /> They say there are only two things certain life... death and taxes. Well, in the Stanford household when I was coming along, there were three: death, taxes and that Mom was going to listen to Harvey's noontime broadcast everyday while putting the finishing touches on lunch (though we, like most Southerners, called it "dinner"). And for me and my brother (when we not in school) it was either "sit down and be quiet" or "go outside and play" when Harvey's broadcast began. <br /> <br /> Even then his delivery was the same as it was for his last broadcast a few months ago just before his death... that staccato-style and even then he also ended his broadcasts with his signature "Good day!" much as Cronkite continued to tell us "That's the way it is..." at the end of each of his broadcasts right up until the last one.<br /> <br /> One event and two broadcast legends that will live forever in my memory.

http://accesswdun.com/article/2009/7/221906