CBS News, Special Events and Sports at CBS Television in 1948. In 1950, the nightly newscast was retitled "Douglas Edwards with the News", and the following year, it became the first news program to be broadcast on both coasts, thanks to a new coaxial cable connection, prompting Edwards to use the greeting, "Good evening everyone, coast to coast" to begin each edition. The broadcast was renamed the "CBS Evening News" when Walter Cronkite replaced Edwards in 1962. Edwards remained with CBS News as anchor/reporter for various daytime television and radio news broadcasts until his retirement on April 1, 1988. Although CBS
Walter Cronkite Cronkite concluded that "The failure to give free airtime for our political campaigns endangers our democracy." During the elections held in 2000, the amount spent by candidates in the major TV markets approached $1 billion. "What our campaign asks is that the television industry yield just a tiny percentage of that windfall, less than 1 percent, to fund free airtime." He was a member of the Constitution Project's bipartisan Liberty and Security Committee. He also supported the nonprofit world hunger organization Heifer International. In 1998, he supported President Bill Clinton during Clinton's impeachment trial. He was also a proponent of