March 13, 2003

Walter Cronkite to Appear on
Live Satellite Program at UM

“A Conversation with Walter Cronkite”, the William S. Paley Annual Lecture, will be presented live via satellite Monday, March 31, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. in Room 4210T, Hornbake Library, on the University of Maryland College Park campus. The event is free and open to the public with no reservations required.

Cronkite will review both his own extraordinary career in radio and television and the evolution of electronic news from the pre-television days to today's world of 24-hour cable news networks. A question-and-answer session will give audiences at participating schools an opportunity to speak directly to Cronkite via telephone.  

This program is part of the University Satellite Seminar Series that features writers, directors, producers, and actors from contemporary and historic television and radio, as well as the policymakers and analysts who influence the issues being discussed. This series, presented live via satellite, to colleges and universities throughout the United States, enlivens and enriches existing curricula in disciplines as diverse as journalism, communications, political science, and education.

One of the most revered names in broadcast news, Walter Cronkite has spent more than 60 years as a journalist—over 40 of them at CBS News—and covered almost every landmark event of that time. His reporting has included D-Day, the Nuremberg trials, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, the moon landing, and Watergate. Cronkite anchored CBS political and convention coverage from 1952 to 1980 and The CBS Evening News from 1962 to 1981, in addition to hosting numerous acclaimed documentaries, including his seminal 1968 special on Vietnam.

The satellite feed on the College Park campus is sponsored by the University of Maryland Libraries and its Nonprint Media Services Department. For additional information, contact Allan C. Rough at: arough@umd.edu or 301-405-9225.