The notion that Walter Cronkite was â??the most trusted man in Americaâ? has received fresh stimulus from the recently published biography about the avuncular CBS News anchorman.
â??Most trustedâ??? How so?
Author Douglas David Brinkley refers often in the book, titled Cronkite, to the anchormanâ??s â??most trustedâ? status. But Cronkite contains no searching assessment about whether the epithet was justified or based on much empirical evidence.
Itâ??s really a dubious characterization that has morphed into a tiresome cliché. It was not credibly supported by public opinion polling: It was propelled by CBS advertising.
The â??most trustedâ? epithet can be traced to a survey conducted in 1972 of 8,780 respondents in 18 states. The pollster, Oliver Quayle and Company, sought to assess and compare public trust among then-prominent U.S. politicians.
Inexplicably, Cronkite was included in the Quayle poll, which meant he was compared to the likes of Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey, Edmund S. Muskie, George McGovern, Edward Kennedy, and Spiro T. Agnew.
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