Walter Cronkite to speak at University of the Pacific

Event details: Walter Cronkite is appearing at Pacific on the invitation of President Don DeRosa. The Associated Students of the University of the Pacific are co-sponsoring the event.

Tickets are free but are limited. Tickets will be available for this event starting 9 a.m. Oct. 3. Tickets can be ordered by calling 209.946.2867 or by visiting the box office at Pacific’s Long Theater, located west of Dave Brubeck Way and north of Kensington Way on campus. There will be no Internet ordering available for this event. Tickets that are ordered but not picked up by 4 pm, Friday, November 3 will be released to the general public on the day of the event through the Faye Spanos Concert Hall ticket office.

Cronkite was a CBS news anchorman for 19 years and once was called the most trusted man in America. Analysts regularly dissected his evening broadcasts to get a sense of American opinion and views and presidential aid Bill Moyers once speculated that Cronkite’s stance against the Vietnam War was a major factor in President Lyndon B. Johnson's offer to negotiate with the enemy and not to run for President in l968.

Cronkite never publicly acknowledged his influence. He often commented that he was just a working journalist who retold the events of the day. His motto was to get the story, “fast, accurate, and unbiased.� His trademark sign-off line was “And that's the way it is.�

He retired from CBS in l981 but has remained active. He hosted PBS’s New Years Eve broadcast of the Vienna Philharmonic and hosted several documentaries on health, old age, and children in poverty. He is a regular blogger on The Huffington Post. Last year he narrated a radio documentary on Guglielmo Marconi, widely credited with inventing radio. This month Cronkite introduced Katie Couric on air to his old position as anchor of the CBS Evening News.

Event website: http://www.pacific.edu/homepage/news/mainstory.asp?postid=4169