Friday was not a good day.

Friday we lost one of the few people left in the world that people trusted without question.

Friday Walter Cronkite died.

I became a thinking adult watching him deliver the news starting in 1962 and when he stepped down in 1981 I stopped watching TV news—I wanted intelligence and objectivity, not image and opinions.

How can those of us who are familiar with Cronkite convey what he did for us? How do we explain to a generation that thinks bloggers, Howard Stern and morning TV are viable news sources what Walter Cronkite gave us?

Walter Cronkite understood the meaning behind Lao Tzu’s words, “To lead the people, walk behind them.”

Here are a few of his comments that I especially like…

“I feel no compulsion to be a pundit.”

“In seeking truth you have to get both sides of a story.”

“I think it is absolutely essential in a democracy to have competition in the media, a lot of competition, and we seem to be moving away from that.”

“We are not educated well enough to perform the necessary act of intelligently selecting our leaders.”

“America’s health care system is neither healthy, caring, nor a system.”

“I want to say that probably 24 hours after I told CBS that I was stepping down at my 65th birthday, I was already regretting it. And I regretted it every day since.”

I hope all of you will click the link and read more about this truly unique man; our country would be different without him.

I know of no better words with which to end today then as Cronkite ended each of his news shows—

“And that’s the way it is.”

Image credit: CBS on YouTube