TVSquad

Walter Cronkite is a tougher act to follow than letting Metallica open for William Hung.

But now that the news legend and former most trusted man in America has passed on to that big newsroom in the great beyond, America needs someone else to trust. They need someone they can depend on to get the hard, cold facts about the important stories that truly affect their lives. They need someone to cut through the political haze of misdirection and mediocrity that cloud almost every major news story like a lingering beer fart.

That man is ... Jon Stewart. Don't like it? Blame the rest of the news media for not doing a better job.

Right after Walter Cronkite died, CBS decided to stop using his voice over in the intro of the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, mainly figuring it was inappropriate to have a ghostly voice introduce their current anchor.

It seemed like a respectful decision, but it felt a bit wrong to me. The voice over was a simple sentence: "This is the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric." That's it. It felt like a good way to pay tribute to his immense contributions to television news and to bridge the years between his era and the current one. And, shockingly enough, it wouldn't have felt creepy at all, just comforting.

Cronkite's family must have felt the same way, as they've given CBS permission to keep using his voice at the top of the broadcast. How long CBS will keep doing it is anyone's guess. But if Billy Mays can keep selling Oxi Clean from the Great Beyond, why can't Uncle Walter keep introducing the news?

Walter Cronkite's passing didn't mark the end of an era in the TV news business. The era he helped produce and prolong died long before he did.

It's hard for me to ever imagine a time when people considered a major network news anchor as America's most trusted source for anything. Claims of bias and political persuasion being injected into every story with a meat syringe created a thick fog that made it very hard to cover anything with a modicum of honesty.

Cronkite, however, was the man people turned to when something blew up, exploded, imploded, launched, landed or any other number of descriptive verbs, because his goal wasn't to make news every time he stepped in front of a camera. His goal was just to report it.

Long before ESPN was the worldwide leader in sports, ABC sportscaster and newsman Jim McKay was the voice of American sports. ABC sports legend Jim McKay died today at the age of 86; the cause of death was not revealed. In the annals of television history, Jim McKay is among the giants in sports broadcasting: a twelve-time Emmy winner, an iconic presence on The Wide World of Sports, the man who said the words, "the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat." He was the moderator of twelve Olympics and a broadcaster who gave the best he had in every television show in which he was involved, be it the Kentucky Derby, the British Open, or any of the other hundreds of events he covered.

If Jim McKay had just done that, he'd have a great legacy. However, when he was confronted with the task of anchoring the events that unfolded at the 1972 Munich Olympics, when the Israeli athletes were taken hostage by terrorist and killed in a commando raid, Jim McKay rose to the occasion.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Chris Wallace is on the short list for replacements if -- more likely when -- Katie Couric departs the CBS Evening News anchor desk. Wallace, son of the CBS elder statesmen and 60 Minutes attack dog Mike Wallace, has been host of Fox News Sunday since 2003. But the guy isn't interested.

"As much as I grew up in CBS and as much as I associate that anchor chair with Walter Cronkite and the history of broadcasting, I have never been so happy as I have working the last four-plus years at Fox. I suspect I've had a much better last couple of years than Katie Couric."

Walter Cronkite is coming back to television.

Oh, sure, you hear his voice every night in the intro to The CBS Evening News, but his entire body is coming back to TV, on a cable network called Retirement Living TV. It's a year-old network aimed at people who constantly scream at the TV and always misplace "the clicker."

Actually, it sounds like an OK channel for people 55 and older (though isn't 55 a little on the young side?). Shows will include Healthline, Bargain Retirement Places, and Who Wants To Buy A Coffin? Just kidding on the last one. Also signed up on the network are ex-CNN anchor Mary Alice Williams, ex-NBC News anchor/reporter John Palmer, and Florence Henderson, who has hosted several daytime shows, including that Today spinoff a few years back.

Last week, dear brother Joel (really, he's my brother, except I'm prettier) asked you, the beautiful TV Squad readers, if Meredith Vieira could be taken seriously as both the host of both Who Wants to be a Millionaire and Today. Some of you said there was no problem with Vieira's credibility; others said it should be one or the other.

Well, folks, lovely Meredith is not the first person to do double-duty as both a game show host and a news personality. As Joel stated in his post, Joe Garagiola hosted and was a panelist on a number of game shows while on Today. However, he is a recent example. Truth be known, during the early days of television news people regularly double-dipped between one format and another without a complaint.