Interviewer: You came up with your signature statement when you went on CBS Evening News.
Walter Cronkite: That’s the way it is.
Interview: How did you come up with that?
More »Interviewer: You came up with your signature statement when you went on CBS Evening News.
Walter Cronkite: That’s the way it is.
Interview: How did you come up with that?
Walter Cronkite: Well I had the naïve idea with a half hour we’d have time at the end of the broadcast for a little quirk of faith story…one of those 1 or 2 paragraph stories which could be either happy or sad or sardonic or whatever. And I thought it needed it I just couldn’t pop that into the end of the broadcast without some kind of a punch line at the end and I searched for one that could be used in any of those circumstances and used equally well. You can laugh: ‘that’s the way it is’. Sardonic: ‘that’s the way it is.’ Or sad: ‘well that’s the way it is’. And so I adopted it and didn’t tell Nick, president of CBS. Went on the air with it, called into the office or he called from home…called and said what in the world is that business you’re doing. And I tried to explain it…I don’t like it, I don’t like it. I’ll talk to you tomorrow about it. When he came in he complained the next day that he didn’t like it that he didn’t like it primarily for the very good reason…you’re telling people that’s the way it is well we could make mistakes in that broadcast, it’s not necessarily the way it is. We’re bragging about something we can’t produce. Well I realized he was right about it but by that time a couple of days had gone by and people were already commenting on it. And it just caught on instantly. And I pointed out to him that the distinguished broadcasters like Edward R. Murrow would have their sign off, his was Good night and good luck and Thomas, so long until tomorrow and so forth. And all these guys had one, why shouldn’t I have one. Well he yielded to let us try it and it did just snow balled into something people seemed to appreciate. So we went in and did it despite the fact he was right, maybe we shouldn’t have made that statement.”
« Less
