And that's the way it is

jjmoney62 · **Posted:** Mon Dec 29, 2003 9:15 am

Walter Cronkite says he didn't realize how much research he'd have to do for his syndicated newspaper column. "I'm beginning to think it's pure madness," he says of the column. "It's lot more work than I thought it was going to be."** And poor old Walter must have no clue it's even harder to write a GOOD column. **[ December 29, 2003: Message edited by: jjmoney62 ]

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Mon Dec 29, 2003 3:29 pm

Has anyone ever read it? I've never seen it, not that I've looked.
I'm prepared to cut Walter Cronkite major slack, though. If he wants to write a column, it's OK with me.

RimRat · **Posted:** Mon Dec 29, 2003 8:19 pm

his syndicated newspaper columnHuh. Perhaps the most trusted American broadcast journalist of all time is writing for newspapers again? Is it online anywhere? I'd sure as hell like to see it. I still think You Are There was one of (relatively) early television's great shows.

jjmoney62 · **Posted:** Mon Dec 29, 2003 8:58 pm

i saw his column once in the local competition.

RimRat · **Posted:** Mon Dec 29, 2003 9:23 pm

JJ, pardon my ignorance, but would that be the Journal or the Trib? I'll look it up on the paper's website.

tim · **Posted:** Mon Dec 29, 2003 9:40 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by RimRat:
[b]his syndicated newspaper columnHuh. Perhaps the most trusted American broadcast journalist of all time is writing for newspapers again? Is it online anywhere? I'd sure as hell like to see it. I still think You Are There was one of (relatively) early television's great shows.[/b]<hr></blockquote>The St. Augustine Record has an archive of his columns here. I haven't read them yet, so I cannot comment on the quality. I am heartened to see a columnist who insists upon doing serious research.

RimRat · **Posted:** Mon Dec 29, 2003 9:59 pm

Many thanks. Just read the first three columns on the website. I'm glad I did.

jjmoney62 · **Posted:** Tue Dec 30, 2003 8:46 am

Thanks for the link, Tim. Doesn't look like Walter (or his assistant(s)) is working overtime on research. As for insights, well, let's just say it's been nearly 36 years since the Tet Offensive.

wordygurdy · **Posted:** Tue Dec 30, 2003 11:23 am

How cool is Testy Copy Editors? In the past couple of days, I've been following with interest the "distinction without a difference" discussion regarding Everson's title (though I wouldn't necessarily make the call at my publication--that would be the reporter's job ultimately), found a great resource for ascertaining whether a celebrity is dead or alive (I would use that at work and outside of work, in addition to the Internet Movie Database) and found a link to Walter Cronkite's columns! What's more, the site is well organized and loads extremely quickly. I wish another privately run Net discussion board I have interest in could make the same claims. I would visit it more often except that the entire site reloads every time you click on a message from a poster. It takes "forever"--actually only 15 seconds or 20 seconds on a cable modem or T1 line, but it feels like forever--for a message to come up onscreen, and so it can take a good 30 minutes or so to get a sense of what's going on at that site. Here, you can glimpse what's going on in five minutes.

tim · **Posted:** Tue Dec 30, 2003 3:06 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by jjmoney62:
Thanks for the link, Tim. Doesn't look like Walter (or his assistant(s)) is working overtime on research. As for insights, well, let's just say it's been nearly 36 years since the Tet Offensive.<hr></blockquote>Yeah, one column trods out the well-worn tale of the Christmas-day impromptu truce during WWII. Not exactly fresh stuff, but I haven't noticed any lack of research. I'm with P. Blanchard on giving him some slack.And yes, wordygurdy, TCE is way cool. I gotta tell you, though, whenever I see "wordygurdy" I think of the movie "Hurly Burly." That isn't a pleasant thought.[ December 30, 2003: Message edited by: Tim Hathcock ]

wordygurdy · **Posted:** Tue Dec 30, 2003 3:46 pm

Never saw it, Tim. You mean the Sean Penn flick? Is it not a good or uplifting movie? (I guess if it has Sean Penn in it, by nature it's not going to be an uplifting movie. Sheesh, has he starred in some depressing movies, from *Falcon and the Snowman* to *Mystic River* and *21 Grams.*)Wordy Gurdy is the name of a word-jumble feature that runs in a major metro daily near me. It probably runs in many papers across the country.[ December 30, 2003: Message edited by: wordygurdy ]

jmcg · **Posted:** Tue Dec 30, 2003 7:28 pm

I understand cutting Cronkite some slack, too. Problem is, running his column (which I'd rate as mediocre) means leaving someone else out. True, many papers can and will do worse. But the good papers would do better than Walter.

jjmoney62 · **Posted:** Fri Jan 02, 2004 1:28 pm

Walter, 1/2/04
Parties, Voters Should Resolve to Improve SystemLet us suppose, just for the moment, that we could draw up a few New Year's resolutions for our two political parties. ....

JB · **Posted:** Fri Jan 02, 2004 4:02 pm

We run Cronkite, but we're having second thoughts.

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