Pitfalls of an Anchorman
By WALTER CRONKITE
Two situations appalled me when I sat in the anchor chair. For one, there were those who would come up to me on the street and say:
I wanted to shake them and point out that our daily box score showed hits, runs and errors.
Equally appalling were the number of people who urged me to run for public office, for everything from mayor to President. (Dog-catcher never was mentioned.)
I have stood on a long-held principle in refusing even to entertain the idea of running for office. Should one who has achieved national fame as a presumably impartial news person ever run, the public is going to have every reason to question whether that person had been tailoring the news to build a political platform. The burden of credibility is already heavy enough without that extra load.
I tried to explain that to Bobby Kennedy, who was then a Senator from New York, in 1968. I had just returned from Vietnam and the controversial broadcast in which I stepped out of my normal role and, clearly identifying the material as editorial opinion, suggested that we should seek an honorable peace and get out.
Kennedy called me down to his Senate office to have lunch, just the two of us. He wanted to hear more about Vietnam but it turned out he had something else in mind. At that moment he was considering whether to run for the Democratic nomination against the incumbent, President Lyndon Johnson.
After hearing his strong views on Vietnam, which happened to coincide with my own, I fell into a trap which always lies there for the unwary newsman who succumbs to the heady narcotic of being on the inside. I became a player rather than observer.
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http://www.nytimes.com/ref/opinion/18opclassic.html