My Meetings with My Idol
by a former news anchor

If you were a TV newscaster as I was for twenty-three years than it is very probable that Walter Cronkite would be a role model. He was the type of journalist you don’t find much anymore. He was a reporter, a managing editor; he always insisted that the story be about the events not about him. That is why in January 1983 I was thrilled to have the chance to interview him. It turned out to be an “ambush” interview. Usually that term is reserved for interview subjects who don’t want to be interviewed and for whom you wait in hiding for your turn to “catch them”. This wasn’t the case with Walter Cronkite.

My crew and I simply didn’t know where to find him. Bill Bauman the news director for what was then WCPX Channel six called me at home. Walter and his wife Betsey were on their sailing boat traveling down the Inter-Coastal Waterway. No one knew for sure where the boat was. “Take the Skywatch helicopter and see if you can find him.” Mac the pilot, Doc the cameraman and I flew from our base in Orlando in search of Walter Cronkite. We found the boat. It was anchored off the coast but there was no one aboard. We landed the helicopter. We were told the crew had taken off for lunch but would return when Walter and his wife did. We went in search of the crew. But then what? Mac suggested that the crew would welcome the opportunity to fly over the coast. That meant we had the crew and Walter and his wife would need to wait until the crew returned before they left. We were somewhat shamefaced returning to the pier to find Walter and his wife waiting. “It was the only way we knew to make sure we would have a chance to interview you.” He could have said no. of course. He didn’t. So I interviewed the premier newsman of the 20^th century in the hot sun on a Titusville pier. He talked about his fear that news would be taken over by entertainment, the need for reporters to be objective and how much he was enjoying his retirement. There had never been enough time when he anchored for CBS he told me. Sailing his boat was the favorite pastime for him and his wife Betsey.

Flash forward to 1989; Henri Landwirth a millionaire philanthropist had founded Give Kids the World, a village where terminally ill children and their families could come to enjoy Central Florida attractions. Henri a survivor of the Holocaust was a famous figure in his own right. Now he had realized his dream. He had called on donors and corporations around the country to help him build a village where families could stay. As part of the grand opening ceremonies, Henri hosted a thank you party at the Peabody Hotel in Orlando. Henri and I had become friends. He had asked me to emcee the lunch hosting more than 700 laborers who had worked on the project. The nighttime event was truly a gala. Henri had many friends: the astronauts he knew personally from years earlier managing the Starlight Hotel in CocoaBeach as well as movie stars, politicians and entertainers. Walter, who was by then a good friend of Henri’s, emceed the evening gala. Between lunch and the gala, Henri invited all his VIP guests to take a trip from the hotel to the site of the Village. What awaited all the VIP’s outside the hotel were not limos but school buses. So it was that we all boarded school buses for the grand opening  ceremony. My friend Linda who was the photographer for the event sat with me in one bus as we watched Art Buchwald, Buzz Aldrin John Glenn and a host of other celebrities climb aboard our bus. The last one aboard was Walter. He playfully went up and down the aisles giving us instructions for storing our baggage and collecting our imaginary tickets. As the bus pulled onto to Interstate 4 heading towards the village I thought about people in cars speeding by us on their way to the attractions never knowing about the “all star” crew aboard this little school bus. .. Walter’s friendship with Henri remained a strong one until Walter’s death.

How many of us aspiring news reporters and anchors wanted to be journalists in the Walter Cronkite mold! His influence is still strong today among those who seek to attain the highest standards of journalism that he set for us. And that’s the way it is July 18 2009. We will miss you Walter