When Katie Couric took over the anchor chair on "The CBS Evening News" back in September 2006, somebody had the bright idea to get long-retired anchor Walter Cronkite to record the opening.
Cronkite died last July 17 at the age of 92, but his voice remained there at the opening of the nightly newscast, until tonight.
On the first regular weeknight newscast of the year -- which airs in 58 at 5:30 p.m. on Channel 58 -- unveiled a new voice to begin the newscast: Morgan Freeman.
TV Newser notes that all three network newscasts are now opened by actor's voice. "NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams" is announced by Michael Douglas, and Mike Rowe, who hosts Discovery's "Dirty Jobs," is the voice of ABC's "World News with Diane Sawyer.
Tim Cuprisin is the media columnist for OnMilwaukee.com. He's been a journalist for 30 years, starting in 1979 as a police reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary wire service that's the reputed source of the journalistic maxim "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." He spent a couple years in the mean streets of his native Chicago, and then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today, before coming to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.
A general assignment reporter, Cuprisin traveled Eastern Europe on several projects, starting with a look at Poland after five years of martial law, and a tour of six countries in the region after the Berlin Wall opened and Communism fell. He spent six weeks traversing the lands of the former Yugoslavia in 1994, linking Milwaukee Serbs, Croats and Bosnians with their war-torn homeland.
In the fall of 1994, a lifetime of serious television viewing earned him a daily column in the Milwaukee Journal (and, later the Journal Sentinel) focusing on TV and radio. For 15 years, he has chronicled the changes rocking broadcasting, both nationally and in Milwaukee, an effort he continues at OnMilwaukee.com.
When he's not watching TV, Cuprisin enjoys tending to his vegetable garden in the backyard of his home in Whitefish Bay, cooking and traveling.
