I grew up with him being a rather constant presence on TV, especially when visiting my Grandma’s house, preferred him over the competition…I think Barbara Wah Wah on ABC and John Chancellor/David Brinkley on NBC. Walter definitely had a pretty distinct voice since comedians loved to do impressions of him: The Muppets, voice actor Frank Welker is pretty spot on in Futurama.
Not until I moved to Austin did I learn about his Texas roots. His family moved to Houston when he was a kid and he attended high school with Marvin Zindler (if you’re not Texan, he was a Houston-based TV crank that pre-dates Faux News). Although UT loves to go on and take credit for him, he dropped out proving how their Journalism program as is helpful to getting a job as their Film degrees; they love to plug/promote Linklater, who never attended.
Years later when he was an employee of CBS, Walter and the stage manager (unknown who) pioneered how TV broadcast news was presented in 1951 by having him sit at a desk and read off the stories. Doesn’t sound too terribly different how they did in radio, other than the audience being unable to read the newscaster’s face.
Sixty years on, the presentation hasn’t changed much, just the channels, personalities and the growth of bullshit being legitimate as corporations gobbled up the media. He’s somewhat missed because Walter Cronkite didn’t suffer fools gladly and he managed to keep LBJ (a very manipulative guy) from sidelining him after the 1964 conventions.