Who’s Cronkite?

Like many of you I’m a history buff, and at about 7 o’clock last night I was somehow corralled into writing a research paper for my 16-year-old about the media’s influence during the Vietnam War. I found myself googling, paraphrasing, teaching, then structuring and rewriting.

With no formal classes, Jack needed guidance. I was Johnny Rose from Schitt’s Creek trying to fine tune his daughter’s C- into an A. I immersed myself in Cronkite’s famous 1968 telecast, helping Jack create a thesis around the power of the media to investigate and tell the truth. This is what I learned in journalism school and here we were at half past midnight trying to summarize history. I changed sentences just as Jack updated footnotes.

“The document is moving Jack, my cursor is missing, for cryin’ out loud what in the world is happening!” I remember saying. “It’s called google docs dad – we can work together at the same time…relax, you’ll be okay….”

We titled it, “The Rise of Cronkite: How the Media Icon Changed American Views of the Vietnam War.”

I sat up today thinking about the paper, wondering if there will be a Cronkite moment still to come during this pandemic. I thought about influence and wondered who will be today’s Cronkite. I can’t really think of any one influencer in this moment more important during this pandemic, more influential, than nurses.

They are helping families facetime with mom from the hospital bed, or say goodbye to dad. They are taking shifts in ICUs and ERs. They are coming out of retirement. They are our humanity right now, helping people feel safer in uncertain times.

And just as I wonder if Jack will help his own kid in 45 years to write about this crisis, I wonder if today’s nurses will inspire future generations as Cronkite has. If they’ll influence my own daughter to take her voice bedside, to help people feel less alone, just like she does here with a bit of laughter and a lot of love.