WI Walter Cronkite does not retire

I’m curious if Walter Cronkite deciding to keep his job at CBS news would have changed anything in any significant manner. There was apparently a policy in place that required CBS employees to retire at 65, but given that he was Walter Cronkite, I have to think if he pushed hard enough he could have kept his job a few more years at least. So let’s assume that CBS decides to waive Cronkite from their policy, and he is not made to retire.

So, what effect would this have on the evening news, and the nation in general? Would Cronkite have eventually been pushed out of the anchor chair, or could he have kept it as long as he wanted to? If he decides and is able to anchor around twenty more years and retires at the dawn of the twenty first century, would evening news broadcasts be in better shape today then they currently are, bleeding viewers to both the internet and 24/7 news channels?
 
I’m curious if Walter Cronkite deciding to keep his job at CBS news would have changed anything in any significant manner. There was apparently a policy in place that required CBS employees to retire at 65, but given that he was Walter Cronkite, I have to think if he pushed hard enough he could have kept his job a few more years at least. So let’s assume that CBS decides to waive Cronkite from their policy, and he is not made to retire.

There would have been a news bulletin that went

"Good evening, this is teh 9 o'clock news read by Walter Cronkite. Tonight in Wash,,, urgh uhhh uhhh" THUD.
 
I’m curious if Walter Cronkite deciding to keep his job at CBS news would have changed anything in any significant manner. There was apparently a policy in place that required CBS employees to retire at 65, but given that he was Walter Cronkite, I have to think if he pushed hard enough he could have kept his job a few more years at least. So let’s assume that CBS decides to waive Cronkite from their policy, and he is not made to retire.

So, what effect would this have on the evening news, and the nation in general? Would Cronkite have eventually been pushed out of the anchor chair, or could he have kept it as long as he wanted to? If he decides and is able to anchor around twenty more years and retires at the dawn of the twenty first century, would evening news broadcasts be in better shape today then they currently are, bleeding viewers to both the internet and 24/7 news channels?

I think that the main change would be a greater trust in mainstream news.
 
I’m curious if Walter Cronkite deciding to keep his job at CBS news would have changed anything in any significant manner. So, what effect would this have on the evening news, and the nation in general? If he decides and is able to anchor around twenty more years and retires at the dawn of the twenty first century, would evening news broadcasts be in better shape today then they currently are, bleeding viewers to both the internet and 24/7 news channels?

Interestingly he regretted giving up his chair, and was disappointed in Dan Rather. (See: Howard Kurtz's Reality Show: Inside the Last Great Television News War which is also a book incredibly relevant if you're interested in modern network news.)

I don't see him doing another twenty years, though, but I could easily see him staying through Reagan and perhaps to the Gulf War and the '92 election.

The effect? No Rather, of course, so he may jump to another network. CBS gets to save themselves a hundred million or so on Katie Couric. I could see Bob Schieffer taking over permanently in the early to mid '90s (though I'd have to reread Reality Show to see who were the major possibilities at that time). In Schieffer's interim stint CBS did very well in the ratings—improving over Rather, and far above what Couric would achieve.

Overall though I don't really think that Cronkite would change things that much. CBS may retain the ratings lead, and they may keep an overall higher share than OTL but cable is still coming, CNN is still coming, the Daily Show is coming, and the ever aging cohort that watches Evening News is still dying.
 
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