For anyone who has worked as a professional reporter the ultimate attribute so many hope to achieve is the ability to develop a critical eye toward the present and future and shift gears when needed.

The one element that prevents so many from achieving success in reporting is intransigence.  Aided frequently by pressure, sometimes through a stubborn instinct, other times through refusal to apply the hard work and corresponding judgment to follow through, reporters will fail to observe an important trend.  

Walter Cronkite was someone who began reporting as a teen and was delighted to be in journalism.  This showed when he demonstrated a refreshingly youthful buoyancy over a positive achievement such as America placing astronauts on the moon.

On the sober front of international relations, Cronkite shook the collective collar of middle class America, those regulars who watched his network news broadcasts, when he asserted that to look for victory in the morass of the Vietnam War quagmire was to seek the impossible.