Was Walter Cronkite looked at as tech savvy journalist? A lesson for the American law blogger

Other than my parents, Walter Cronkite was among the biggest influencers in my life.

We only had one TV station in my town. WKBT, a CBS affiliate which came on mid morning with a game show like The Price is Right. After the midday news and farm report we got soap operas followed by some after school shows.

Walter Cronkite came on at 5:30. Dad wasn’t home from work, but Mom’s turning Walter on among her busy tasks influenced me to start watching him.

From landing on the moon, the assassinations of JFK, his brother Bobby and Martin Luther King, the ‘race riots,’ Kent State students killed by the National Guard, to Friday night’s reporting of the number of soldiers killed that week (Viet Cong in red, US in Red, White, & Blue), Walter Cronkite influenced me.

Seeing that body count each Friday left an indelible impression. How could so many young people be killed (thousands a week)? How could we score success by the number of body bags? No doubt Walter Cronkite gave rise to the vibrant discussions at the dinner table. Me saying I was headed to Canada via Michigan if I was drafted. Dad who served in the Korean War and who had older friends killed on the beaches of Normandy, saying we had an obligation to serve when our nation called.

So I was all over news of Walter’s death. What struck me was discussion of Walter’s use of this new medium, the television, to become ‘the most trusted man in America.’ But no discussion of this Midwesterner with an everyman likability being tech savvy.

As the LA Times’ Valerie Nelson reported, Cronkite wanted to be a journalist, but that all changed with television.

As anchor and managing editor of the “CBS Evening News” from 1962 to 1981, Mr. Cronkite’s masterful, disciplined stewardship helped television news come of age……He had been at CBS since 1950, when legendary newsman Edward R. Murrow recruited him for the network’s young television division. Cronkite had distinguished himself as a daring World War II correspondent for the United Press wire service who accompanied bombing missions and crash-landed in a glider.

The 1952 Republican National Convention launched Cronkite’s career and made clear television’s new dominance over radio. The broadcast also popularized an industry term — “anchorman” — employed to describe Cronkite’s central role in the convention coverage.

A televsion was new stuff back then. Filled with vacuum tubes and displaying a picture (black and white) generated thousands of miles of way (238,000 in the case of the moon), television broadcasting was a giant leap for technology.

Strange though that Walter Cronkite was never described as being on the most tech savvy journalists of our time. But by using technology, Walter Conkrite became the most reliable and authoritative figure of our time.

It’s amusing when legal professionals describe blogging as something tech oriented. We get an excellent review of blogging software for lawyers with substantial discussion about what lawyers may lack on the tech side dictating some of their needs. That was preceded by a free legal directory looking to generate income by selling for $300 per year what appears to be a free wordpress blog solution to ‘non-tech savvy’ lawyers.

Blogging is not about technology. It’s about learning to network on the Internet. It’s about learning to engage your target audience by listening to what they are saying and offering your take. It’s about learning to give of yourself to serve others. It’s about learning how to become a trusted and reliable authority.

Sure you use a dam computer to blog. Sure there’s software on your computer. So what?

We remember Walter Cronkite today not as a tech savvy journalist, but as ‘the most trusted man in American.’

For lawyers who are already blogging and the hundreds of thousands of lawyers who will start blogging in the coming years, don’t view yourself as tech savvy, just look into the TV camera (your keyboard), be yourself, and tell it like it is.

You’ll not become the most trusted man in American. But becoming a reliable, trusted, and authoritative lawyer in your niche or hometown ain’t all bad.