Cronkite, however, preferred covering the Second World War for the United Press. It was an early display of his preference for the wire-service style and attitude; the preference would mark Cronkite's reporting for the rest of his career.When Cronkite accepted a second CBS offer several years later, the budding broadcaster found himself assigned—perhaps relegated—to airtime in the new medium that seemed little more than a journalistic backwater: television.
He anchored the local news at Columbia's Washington, D.C., affiliate starting soon after the Korean War began in 1950, his broadcast a combination of journalism and experimental theater. There were no rules for television news, and Cronkite had come in on the ground floor. He had little competition; few of the old guard showed much interest in the new medium. Cronkite was pressed into service to anchor the 1952 political conventions and election for CBS television, his presence soon taken for granted in the network anchor chair. Walter Cronkite had established himself firmly as the network's "face" in the medium which was, by now, quite obviously the wave of the future.
He continued to anchor much of CBS's special events coverage, including the 1956 and 1960 political conventions.
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