Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication (often abbreviated to The Cronkite School by its students and faculties), is one of the 24 independent schools at Arizona State University and named in honor of veteran broadcast journalist Walter Cronkite. The school, which is at the downtown Phoenix campus, offers programs leading to a bachelor of arts in journalism and mass communication, master of mass communication, and in fall 2011, the school launched its first journalism and mass communication doctoral program. The Cronkite School began as the Division of Journalism under
Walter Cronkite Howard K. Smith and Harry Reasoner, because ABC at the time fed their newscast live at 6:00 pm Eastern instead of 6:30 to get a head start on CBS and NBC for those stations that aired "ABC Evening News" live (although not every affiliate did). On December 10, 1963, Cronkite introduced The Beatles to the United States by airing a four-minute story about the band on "CBS Evening News". This was originally broadcast on November 22, 1963, and was going to be shown again on the "CBS Evening News", but the assassination of John F. Kennedy prevented the broadcast at