Cronkite

by Douglas Brinkley

Within the TV context, a running debate ensued over who coined the term anchorman. Sig Mickelson and Don Hewitt both made claims. But, in truth, the label had been applied to other, less successful news presenters before being famously applied to Walter Cronkite. Mickelson had indeed thought about using the term when Cronkite was CBS’s host for the 1951 San Francisco conference that yielded the Treaty of Peace with Japan. But the dynamic didn’t feel right. “I am not sure if that term was ever used in radio,” Mickelson recalled. “But the concept was definitely in place. The way it got some notice was when the press information department at CBS asked ‘what’s Walter Cronkite going to do?’ I said he is going to ‘anchor for us.’ Then they started thinking about it and started describing him as an anchorman and that seems to be where the idea really took off.”