Daily Herald's Dann Gire on meeting Walter Cronkite

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: Meeting Walter Cronkite: Here's the way it really was : By Dann Gire | Daily Herald Staff : Published: 7/19/2009 12:01 AM : I met Walter Cronkite once, in 1972. : Our meeting may not have changed my life, but our brief and exciting encounter certainly cemented it. : I was a photojournalist covering the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach for the Eastern News, Eastern Illinois University's campus newspaper. : Illinois Republicans had headquartered themselves at the Playboy Plaza Hotel. A great many Republican groups were staying there, along with many celebrities supporting the re-election of President Richard Nixon. : As people streamed into the Playboy Plaza, I figured the best place to hang out was in the lobby with my friend, Eastern News reporter Jim Pinsker, and my girlfriend, Peggy Burke, whose mother had served as chair for the Republican Party in downstate Coles County. : We saw people mob Jimmy Stewart as he made his way to the elevators. : We witnessed Glenn Ford escaping ardent fans by shouting, "Somebody throw some cold water on these women!" : Then, John Wayne ambled through the lobby. As he passed by me, he apparently spotted my Nikon FTN at the ready, and he didn't miss a beat. He snatched one woman with his right arm, Peggy with his left, and pulled them both next to his massive frame. : "Wehhhhhl now," the Duke said, "it looks like it's time for a picture!" : I obliged and tripped the shutter. : But the best moment of that day occurred when Pinsker suddenly grabbed my shoulder and whispered in hushed tones, "Look! It's Walter Cronkite!" : I looked. : I saw Walter Cronkite coming up the steps of the Plaza lobby. I nervously squeezed off a couple of shots before we came face-to-face. : Now, to put this encounter into perspective, you must remember that Walter Cronkite was the CBS reporter who guided and comforted America through the hell of World War II. : Walter Cronkite was the reporter who informed us with melancholy disbelief that our president, John Kennedy, had been assassinated in Dallas. : Walter Cronkite personified the hopes and fears of a nation during that scary moment when Neil Armstrong took his historic step on the surface of the moon. : I grew up, along with the rest of the boomers, believing on some level that a report couldn't really be true until Walter Cronkite confirmed it. : And here I was, meeting Walter Cronkite. : Jim and I excitedly introduced ourselves and told him we were from a college paper in Illinois. : The CBS anchorman simply said: "It's always good to meet two fellow journalists." : We talked for a minute or two, and I have no idea what we said. : Walter Cronkite had just called us two kids "fellow journalists," and we were giddy beyond reason that a person of his stature would possess the humility to include us as his peers. : Jim and I went on to become co-editors of the Daily Eastern News. I married Peggy and spent the next 34 years working at a newspaper. : Today, when I hear critics lambasting the news media for being either leftist pinkos or lap dogs for the administration, I think back to the day I met Walter Cronkite, and take solace in the fact that the title "The Most Trusted Man in America" didn't go to a politician. It didn't go to a clergyman. It didn't go to a scientist. Or a teacher. : It went to a journalist doing the best job he could. : Just like most of the journalists I know. : And that's the way it really was.

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