Friends, colleagues honor Walter Cronkite

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“He was a great anchorman in the news business, because his greatest contribution was not his knowledge or his expertise — as great as those were — it was his steady holding to what was most important,” said his colleague and longtime friend Andy Rooney, who addressed the crowd in a recorded video from behind his well-known desk.

“If it can be said about any individual in our business that he’s been a force for good in the world, Walter Cronkite was that person,” Rooney said.

Cronkite died July 17 at the age of 92. He anchored the “CBS Evening News” from 1962 until 1981.

“I thought that he had the most trusted news program because he had an inquiring mind and a caring heart and a careful devotion to the facts,” former President Clinton said. He said he became friends with Cronkite years after he, as a youth, had watched the venerable anchor.