This Was Television On October 13
1957: Walter Cronkite’s You Are There concludes
You Are There, a combination of journalistic reporting and historical investigation, ran for four years on CBS television before airing its final installment on this date. The show spotlighted key events from American history by “reporting” on them as news events, as though contemporary journalists had been transported to the past. After beginning on radio, the show moved to TV in 1953 with Cronkite as host, an early step in his prolific career as the face of CBS News (and for many, of television journalism entirely).
Decades later, Cronkite radically reinvented You Are There for a new generation with the short-lived You Are Here, which followed mallgoers trying to figure out how to get to Spencer Gifts from the food court. -A.D.
Today’s Birthdays: Tisha Campbell-Martin, Martin’s squeeze (44); Chris Carter, X-Filer (56); Sasha Baron Cohen, indahouse (41); T’Keyah Crystal Keymáh, sketch comic (50); Marie Osmond, songstress (53); Kiele Sanchez, Island interloper (35); Kate Walsh, spunoff doc (45), Demond Wilson, junior junkman (66).
This Was Television 
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