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 correspondents, relieving Bill Downs as the head of the Moscow bureau. CBS offered Cronkite $125 ($2,189 in 2018 money) a week along with "commercial fees" amounting to $25 ($438 in 2018) for almost every time Cronkite reported on air. Up to that point, he had been making $57.50 ($1,006 in 2018) per week at UP, but he had reservations about broadcasting. He initially accepted the offer. When he informed his boss Harrison Salisbury, UP countered with a raise of $17.50 ($306 in 2018) per week; Hugh Baillie also offered him an extra $20 ($350 in 2018) per week to stay.