Legendary Newsman Walter Cronkite Dies at 92

By Bart Barnes and Joe Holley
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, July 17, 2009

Walter Cronkite, America's preeminent television journalist of the 1960s and 1970s who as anchor and managing editor of "CBS Evening News" played a primary role in establishing television as the dominant national news medium of that era, died tonight at the age of 92, CBS reported. He died at his home in New York, the network said; Cronkite had been suffering for some years with cerebrovascular disease, his family said recently.

Cronkite's career reflected the arc of journalism in the mid-20th century. He was a wire service reporter covering major campaigns of World War II before working in radio and then joining a pioneering TV news venture at the CBS affiliate in Washington. Later in New York, he anchored the network's nightly news program from 1962 to 1981, a period in which television established itself as the principal source of information on current events for most Americans. the rest