TELEVISION was central in the American home after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, a national trauma that unfolded in real time and was suited to the emerging medium.

Walter Cronkite was remembered as a great journalist, sailor, friend and father during services that, despite the grandeur of the setting, felt remarkably comfortable – like the man.

Walter Cronkite, the premier TV anchorman of the US networks’ golden age who reported a tumultuous time with reassuring authority and came to be called “the most trusted man in America”, has died at the age of 92.