THE DARTMOUTH: The Way it Was.

My contribution to The D today:

Of the recent celebrity death parade that has streamed across newspaper headlines and the bottom of CNN, none of the late American icons has had such a profound effect on the course of American history and thought as broadcasting legend Walter Cronkite. After his passing on July 17, notable reporters from a bygone generation poured out to pay respects to their distinguished colleague, and younger news anchors have done the same for him as their esteemed mentor.

Absent in this period of retrospection and public mourning have been the voices of today’s youth. Yet oddly enough we are the ones who gobble down more news than Cronkite in his heyday could likely handle, who can use the Internet to customize flows of information from a diverse network of decentralized sources, instead of relying on a single news network as our parents once did.

Now I can’t really offer any meaningful “remembrance” of Cronkite — he retired before I was born. But what I can do is speak to the legacy he has given us, the generation his viewers begot. Keep Reading.