It turns out that Walter Cronkite, the anchorman who prided himself on accuracy helped perpetuate an unfounded claim that newscasters in Sweden and Holland had been nicknamed "cronkiters."
Cronkite wasn't alone in this mistaken report. Apparently, the first journalist to publish it was Pulitzer-prize-winning author David Halberstam. The theory gained credence when Cronkite himself mentioned it in "A Reporter's Life," his 1996 memoir. By then, the tale had also appeared in a 1978 history of CBS News. The Encyclopedia of Television included it in its entry on Cronkite. When Cronkite died last month, The Associated Press published it in his obituary.
Turns out, no evidence nor accounts uncovered thus far confirm its truth. Not Cronkiters. Not cronkiters. Not with a "k" instead of a "c." Not in Holland (which was added to the mix along the way) any more than in Sweden.
"I personally have never heard it," Olof Hulten, a veteran communications researcher and media educator in Kalmar, Sweden, said when asked about the term "cronkiter." A Dutch colleague concurred. Cronkite died last month at age 92.
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