2009.07 大卫-哈尔伯斯塔姆谈沃尔特-克朗凯特

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CULTURE
David Halberstam on Walter Cronkite
"He liked, indeed loved, being Walter Cronkite, being around all those celebrities, but it was as if he could never quite believe that he was a celebrity himself."

JULY 2009 ISSUE
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In 1976, the Atlantic published a major two-part story by David Halberstam, "The Power and the Profits," on the development and influence of broadcast news, and the emergence of the nightly 30-minute newscast. In this section Halberstam considered the durability and appeal of Walter Cronkite.

The solidity and enduring professionalism which Cronkite had first shown in 1952 set him apart when the time came to choose an evening news anchorman. He was by television standards an easy man to work with. What was on the outside was on the inside; he liked, indeed loved, being Walter Cronkite, being around all those celebrities, but it was as if he could never quite believe that he was a celebrity himself. Why, who was it John Glenn’s mother most wanted to meet at the ceremonies marking her son’s return from the first orbital space flight? Walter Cronkite, of course. Cronkite felt an enthusiasm for life and for his work that smacked of the country boy let loose in the big city; it was all wonders and magic. His was a profession filled with immense egos, crowded with very mortal, often quite insecure men blown overnight to superstar status. Cronkite too had considerable ego, but unlike many of his colleagues he had considerable control over it, and his vanity rarely showed in public. He knew by instinct the balance between journalism and show biz; he knew you needed to be good at the latter, but that you must never take it too far. He was enough of an old wire-service man to be uneasy with his new success and fame. He was just sophisticated enough never to show his sophistication.


In addition, he had physical strength and durability. Iron pants, as they say in the trade. He could sit there all night under great stress and constant pressure and never wear down, never blow it. And he never seemed bored by it all, even when it got boring. When Blair Clark and Sig Mickelson recommended him for the anchorman job, that durability, what they called the farm boy in him, was a key factor. He was the workhorse. After all, an anchorman did not necessarily have to be brilliant; he had to synthesize others, and there were those who felt that Sevareid had simply priced himself out of the market intellectually. Eric was thought to be too interested in analysis and opinion, and thus not an entirely believable transmission belt for straight information.

But there was a part of Cronkite that had never left St. Joe, Missouri, and which he consciously advertised. Though he had been a foreign correspondent, in his television incarnation he had been definitively American: air power documentaries, political conventions, space shots. When there was an Eisenhower special to do, Walter did it, and that too was reassuring. (Among those not reassured was John F. Kennedy, who, right after his election, cornered CBS producer Don Hewitt and complained that CBS was against him. “Walter Cronkite’s a Republican, isn’t he?” the President-elect asked. Hewitt allowed as how he didn’t think so. “No, he’s a Republican, I know he’s a Republican,” Kennedy said. Hewitt said he thought Cronkite was probably an independent who had voted for Ike over Stevenson and for Kennedy over Nixon, but that was only a guess. “He’s always with Eisenhower,” Kennedy replied, “always having his picture taken with Eisenhower or going somewhere with him. . .”)


The men who ran broadcasting had become sensitive about going against the American norm, and being ahead of it. For their purposes now Walter was perfect, he was the norm. For him to be against the norm was like going against himself. In addition, he had a strong self-imposed sense of what the limits of his role were, and the dangers of violating the trust that had been given to him. So it worked; he became over the years one of the most trusted men in America. His more elitist colleagues in print journalism, even if they found him on occasion slow in picking up on certain stories, nonetheless respected his integrity. When political pollsters wanted to check on the credibility of possible presidential candidates, they always included Walter Cronkite on the poll as a benchmark against which the trust and acceptability of candidates could be measured, and Cronkite often scored very high.

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He was compatible with the style of the news show that CBS executives had in mind. Television reporting was evolving into a special form; a good “page one,” not much more, not that much explanation of events. The correspondents were to be part wire-service men (in terms of the restraints on personal expression) and part superstars, more recognizable on national political campaigns than some of the candidates. They were intelligent and sophisticated, but they were often underemployed. The contrast between the shorthand of their regular appearances and the intelligence they flashed during slow moments of political conventions was striking. The news show was like putting the New York Times on a postage stamp. An insiders’ joke at CBS News was that if Moses handed down the Ten Commandments, the lead would be, “Moses today came down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments, the two most important of which were…”

In the spring of 1962 Cronkite became the CBS anchorman. He was rooted in a certain tradition and he was the best of that tradition. He set standards by which others were judged. In Sweden, anchormen came to be known as Cronkiters. He was not a distinctive writer himself, but he was a good editor, and when others wrote for him, his ear told him what would work and what would would not. He was not a great interviewer; he was too aware of danger of seeming combative, and his questions were often easy (most memorably at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, when he pitched softballs to Mayor Daley of Chicago). But he was a good synthesizer and clarifier, working hard in the brief time allotted to his program to make the news understandable to millions of people. And his style and character seemed to come through. People set him apart from his office, as they did Eisenhower. When news was bad or upsetting, the audience might be angry with television reporters, but rarely with Walter Cronkite personally. He was exempt.


In 1970, a President who viewed television commentators as a major opposing power center was manipulating political pressure against them, and networks were on the defensive. At a meeting that year between CBS executives and affiliate owners, the resentment and anger of the affiliates against the CBS news team was showing. Cambodia and Kent State had just taken place, and the Nixon-Agnew attacks on TV commentators were their peak. The meeting had been bitter and there was a smell of blood in the air. That night CBS gave a banquet and the management trotted out all the stars, Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day and many others, and they all walked in and received polite applause. And then Cronkite came in and the house went wild, a magnificent standing ovation from the very people who had been echoing the Nixon-Agnew assault on CBS that morning. You can have it both ways.



文化
大卫-哈尔伯斯塔姆谈沃尔特-克朗凯特
"他喜欢，确实喜欢，作为沃尔特-克朗凯特，与所有这些名人在一起，但他似乎永远无法完全相信他自己是一个名人。

2009年7月号
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1976年，《大西洋》杂志发表了大卫-哈尔伯斯塔姆的一篇重要报道，分为两部分："权力和利润"，讲述了广播新闻的发展和影响，以及每晚30分钟的新闻节目的出现。在这一部分中，哈尔伯斯塔姆考虑了沃尔特-克朗凯特的持久性和吸引力。

克朗凯特在1952年首次表现出的稳重和持久的专业精神使他在选择晚间新闻主播的时候脱颖而出。按照电视标准，他是一个容易相处的人。他喜欢，确实喜欢做沃尔特-克朗凯特，喜欢和那些名人在一起，但他似乎永远无法相信他自己也是一个名人。为什么，约翰-格伦的母亲最想在纪念她儿子首次轨道太空飞行归来的仪式上见到谁？当然是沃尔特-克朗凯特。克朗凯特对生活和工作有一种热情，就像一个在大城市里放任自流的乡下孩子；这一切都是奇迹和魔力。他的职业充满了巨大的自负，挤满了非常平凡的、往往相当不安全的人，一夜之间就被吹成了超级明星。克朗凯特也有相当大的自负，但与他的许多同事不同，他对自负有相当的控制力，他的虚荣心很少在公众面前表现出来。他凭直觉知道新闻工作和演艺事业之间的平衡；他知道你需要擅长后者，但你决不能走得太远。他是一个老电讯员，对自己新的成功和名声感到不安。他只是足够老练，从不显示他的老练。


此外，他还有体力和耐久性。正如他们在贸易中所说的那样，他的裤子是铁的。他可以在巨大的压力和持续的压力下，整晚坐在那里，从不疲惫，从不吹牛。而且他似乎从未对这一切感到厌烦，即使在它变得无聊的时候。当布莱尔-克拉克和西格-米克尔森推荐他担任主播时，这种持久性，即他们所说的他身上的农家子弟，是一个关键因素。他是个干活的人。毕竟，一个主播不一定要有多出色；他必须综合别人的意见，而有些人认为塞瓦里德只是在智力上把自己的价格定在了市场之外。埃里克被认为对分析和意见太感兴趣，因此不是一个完全可信的直接信息传输带。

但克朗凯特有一部分从未离开过密苏里州的圣乔，而且他有意识地宣传过这一点。虽然他曾是一名外国记者，但在他的电视化身中，他一直是明确的美国人：空军纪录片、政治会议、太空镜头。当有艾森豪威尔的特别节目要做时，沃尔特就会去做，这也让人放心。(那些不放心的人中包括约翰-F-肯尼迪，他在当选后就把哥伦比亚广播公司的制片人唐-休伊特逼到墙角，抱怨哥伦比亚广播公司反对他。"当选总统问道："沃尔特-克朗凯特是个共和党人，对吗？休伊特说，他不这么认为。"不，他是一个共和党人，我知道他是一个共和党人，"肯尼迪说。休伊特说，他认为克朗凯特可能是一个独立人士，他曾投票给艾克而不是史蒂文森，投票给肯尼迪而不是尼克松，但这只是一种猜测。"他总是和艾森豪威尔在一起，"肯尼迪回答说，"总是和艾森豪威尔合影或者和他一起去某个地方。.")


管理广播的人已经对违背美国的规范，并走在它的前面变得敏感。对他们来说，现在沃尔特是完美的，他是标准。对他来说，违背常规就等于违背自己。此外，他对自己角色的局限性有很强的自我意识，以及违反给予他的信任的危险性。因此，他成功了；多年来，他成为美国最值得信赖的人之一。他在印刷新闻界更多的精英同事，即使他们发现他有时会对某些故事反应迟钝，但还是尊重他的诚信。当政治民意调查员想检查可能的总统候选人的可信度时，他们总是把沃尔特-克朗凯特列入民意调查，作为衡量候选人的信任和接受程度的基准，而克朗凯特的得分往往很高。

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他与哥伦比亚广播公司高管心目中的新闻节目风格相符。电视报道正在演变成一种特殊的形式；一个好的 "第一页"，没有更多的东西，没有那么多的事件解释。通讯员们部分是电讯服务人员（就个人表达的限制而言），部分是超级明星，在国家政治运动中比一些候选人更有知名度。他们聪明而老练，但他们往往就业不足。他们定期露面的速记和他们在政治会议的缓慢时刻所闪现的智慧之间的对比是惊人的。新闻节目就像把《纽约时报》放在一张邮票上。CBS新闻的一个内部笑话是，如果摩西传下了十条诫命，导语会是："摩西今天带着十条诫命从山上下来，其中最重要的两条是......"

1962年春天，克朗凯特成为哥伦比亚广播公司的主播。他扎根于某种传统，他是这种传统中的佼佼者。他制定了评判其他人的标准。在瑞典，主播们被称为Cronkiters。他自己不是一个有特色的作家，但他是一个很好的编辑，当别人为他写作时，他的耳朵告诉他什么会成功，什么不会。他不是一个伟大的采访者；他太清楚有可能显得很好斗，而且他的问题往往很简单（最令人难忘的是在1968年的民主党全国代表大会上，他向芝加哥市长戴利投掷软球）。但他是一个很好的综合者和澄清者，在分配给他的节目的短暂时间内努力工作，使数百万人能够理解新闻。而他的风格和性格似乎也得到了体现。人们把他和他的办公室区分开来，就像艾森豪威尔那样。当新闻不好或令人不安时，观众可能会对电视记者生气，但很少对沃尔特-克朗凯特个人生气。他是个例外。


1970年，一位将电视评论员视为主要反对力量中心的总统正在操纵针对他们的政治压力，而电视网络则处于防御状态。在那年哥伦比亚广播公司高管和附属机构所有者之间的一次会议上，附属机构对哥伦比亚广播公司新闻团队的不满和愤怒显露无疑。柬埔寨和肯特州立大学刚刚发生，尼克松-阿格纽对电视评论员的攻击达到了顶峰。会议一直很痛苦，空气中弥漫着一股血腥味。那天晚上，哥伦比亚广播公司举行了一次宴会，管理层把所有的明星都请了出来，吉米-斯图尔特和多丽丝-戴以及其他许多人，他们都走了进来，获得了礼貌的掌声。然后克朗凯特走了进来，全场沸腾了，那些在那天早上响应尼克松-阿格纽对哥伦比亚广播公司的攻击的人们发出了华丽的起立鼓掌。你可以有两种方式。