Walter Cronkite, the CBS News anchor who earned the reputation as ‘The Most Trusted Man in America’, died Friday. He was 92. Following with others presenting tributes to the broadcasting icon, Post South now presents a rare find: Cronkite reporting about turmoil in Plaquemine.
The report, from the first 30-minute installment of the CBS Evening News in September 1963, focused on the racial turmoil in Plaquemine, with footage from Railroad Avenue and Court Street. To view the segment (courtesy of CBS news and youtube.com), click on the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC9WrSLjM-8&feature=PlayList&p=4DE8B4DACDA85A42&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=27. The segment is featured at 4:45 into the telecast – after a commercial from Paxon Cigarettes.
Other segments included an interview with President John F. Kennedy, who discussed military escalation in Vietnam and the upcoming 1964 election -- two months before his assassination.
The broadcast marked the first-ever daily 30-minute news telecast. NBC followed suit shortly after, and ABC went to a half-hour in 1965.
