Arnold Zenker Arnold Zenker Arnold L. Zenker (born 1938) is a retired media broadcaster and public appearance counselor who gained brief stardom by sitting in for Walter Cronkite on the "CBS Evening News" in 1967. Zenker studied at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, from which he received an undergraduate and a law degree. In 1967 at the age of 28, he was asked to sit in for anchor Walter Cronkite to deliver the nightly news. Zenker, working as a Manager of News Programming at CBS at the time, was chosen because a strike by the American Federation of Television and Radio
Walter Cronkite that time. On February 14, 1980, Cronkite announced that he intended to retire from the "CBS Evening News"; at the time, CBS had a policy of mandatory retirement by age 65. Although sometimes compared to a father figure or an uncle figure, in an interview about his retirement he described himself as being more like a "comfortable old shoe" to his audience. His last day in the anchor chair at the "CBS Evening News" was on March 6, 1981; he was succeeded the following Monday by Dan Rather. Cronkite's farewell statement: On the eve of Cronkite's retirement, he appeared on