He became a Special Correspondent for CBS News on March 6, 1981, when he stepped down as anchorman and managing editor of the CBS Evening News after 19 years in that role.

Cronkite joined CBS News in Washington as a Correspondent in July 1950. He assumed his duties on the CBS Evening News on April 16, 1962, when the broadcast was 15 minutes in length. On September 2, 1963, the CBS Evening News became network television's first half-hour weeknight news broadcast; its debut featured Cronkite's headline-making interview with President John F. Kennedy.

Cronkite served as anchorman of the CBS News science magazine series, Walter Cronkite's Universe, which made its debut as a pilot broadcast in June 1979 and was presented as a summer mini-series from 1980-1982.

A sampling of Cronkite's assignments for CBS News over three decades reads like a synopsis of American and world history�exclusive interviews with most major heads of state, including all U.S. Presidents since Harry S. Truman; all aspects of the American political scene since 1952.

Cronkite came to be regarded as an authority on America's space program, reporting on the first two decades of this country's manned space mission from Alan B. Shepard's first flight in 1961 and the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969 to the experimental flights of the space shuttle Enterprise in July 1977 and the fall of Skylab in July 1979. In addition to his reporting on daily new events, Cronkite also anchored and reported on many editions of CBS Reports and other special broadcasts. Among them were multi-part examinations of important issues.

Other major broadcasts on which Cronkite reported were three that received Emmy Awards.