Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and Telecommunication in honor of the veteran news reporter. At the same time, the Walter Cronkite Award for Journalism Excellence was established. In 1989, a professional news program produced by the school's students began production, and later evolved into the well-known Cronkite NewsWatch TV news program. In 2001, the school voted to change its name to Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. The school received independent school status in 2004. It chose Christopher Callahan as its founding dean in 2005. A year later, the school established the Cronkite News Service for advanced journalism students to distribute TV and
Walter Cronkite assassination on November 22, 1963. Another factor in Cronkite and CBS' ascendancy to the top of the ratings was that, as the decade progressed, RCA made a corporate decision not to fund NBC News at the levels that CBS provided for its news broadcasts. Consequently, CBS News acquired a reputation for greater accuracy and depth in coverage. This reputation meshed well with Cronkite's wire service experience, and in 1967 the "CBS Evening News" began to surpass "The Huntley-Brinkley Report" in viewership during the summer months. In 1969, during the Apollo 11 (with co-host and former astronaut Wally Schirra) and Apollo