I Met Walter Cronkite. Once. Now What Do You Think of ME?
Despite the headline, this really isn’t about my relationship with one of the greatest newscasters of all time.
“And That’s The Way It Is” was his signature signoff, whether it was after crying announcing the JFK assassination or rooting for Apollo as it left the moon’s surface. He even maintained credibility when going from Hawk to Dove after visiting Viet Nam.
PHOTO CREDIT: John McNab
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Walter Cronkite died in 2009. “On to another Assignment”, as he said on his last CBS News broadcast. But this isn’t about that, either. This is about what I think the “most trusted man in America” would say about much of what is said by the “elite” in Social Media today.
I am tired of the grandstanding by most of the “influencers”.
I am tired of even the term, “A-list”. Don’t need to name names, they don’t read my stuff, anyway.
I am tired of the constant “high school who’s-doing-what-to-whom” while playing with the latest technology that few people in the real world give a darn about.
According to Facebook:
- More than 750 million active users
- 50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day
- People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook
But what are these people doing? I mean, really? Sharing pictures of their baby, their dog/cat, their house and what they had to eat/drink. Happily without the latest shiny penny pitched by the interweb elite.
Oh, and displaying some really bad grammar. But, I digress.
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PHOTO CREDIT: Steve Rhodes. “Walter Cronkite: A Visit with a Nice Guy” Life March 26, 1971
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Like I said, I met him. ONCE. With 8 years in commercial television, I had a rare opportunity to meet him at a CBS affiliate meeting. Like the Life cover says, he was NICE.
And he was BIG. As in a living ICON. Big in the eyes of the regular people who trusted him, invited him into their homes to talk about things that they thought really mattered. Today they’d be those 750 million Facebook types who just want to share the big rose plant in the back yard with their friends.
He was much bigger than the “listers” of today who are begging for the speakers’ slots and consultant bags of money, and tripping all over their Google+’s. The pretentious and contentious that have done nothing that actually counts with real people.
What was the one thing Walter Cronkite said that gave me perspective to this day?
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“Every time that I think I am doing something really important, I walk outside right after a newscast and realize how many people could care less what I just had to say”
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So, Mr./Ms. “A-Lister” if you actually accidentally trip over THIS, maybe you could pause for a moment with the blah, blah, blah that real people know changes nothing in THEIR life. Those rose picture sharers that could care less about YOURS.
And THAT’S the way it is.
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