Media & Arts
Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite's Texas formation ran through Houston journalism and the University of Texas at Austin before a national CBS career that made him one of the defining television news anchors of the twentieth century.
- Roster rank
- #192
- Category
- Media & Arts
- Subject type
- Person
- Profile source
- Published Texas Icons profile
Texas story
Life and career
Walter Cronkite was born in St. Joseph, Missouri, in 1916, but his family moved to Houston while he was a child. He enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin in 1933, studied political science, economics and journalism, wrote for The Daily Texan, worked at campus radio station KNOW-AM and held an early International News Service job at the Texas Capitol.
Cronkite later worked for the Houston Press before becoming a United Press war correspondent and, eventually, anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News from 1962 to 1981. Texas remained part of his institutional legacy: he donated his papers to UT's Briscoe Center and later taught journalism ethics on campus.
Defining work
What to know
- CBS Evening News
- Apollo 11 coverage
- Kennedy assassination coverage
- Vietnam reporting
- Walter Cronkite Papers
Timeline
Key milestones
- 1933Enrolls at the University of Texas at Austin and works in student journalism and radio.
- 1930sWorks for the Houston Press after leaving UT.
- 1962Becomes anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News.
- 1981Ends his regular CBS Evening News anchor tenure.
- 1988Donates his papers to UT Austin's Briscoe Center and teaches in the College of Communication.
Texas connections
Places in the story
Houston
Childhood home and site of early professional work at the Houston Press.
Austin
University studies, student media, Capitol news work and later archival and teaching ties.
Legacy
Why the story lasts
Cronkite helped define the network-news anchor during television's mass-audience era.
His Texas connection is formative and institutional rather than birthplace-based: Houston and UT Austin are where the professional path began and where his archive ultimately returned.
Sources
Research trail
Cross-linked profiles