The AP's Anick Jesdanun summarizes legendary journalist Walter Cronkite's February 8, 2007 speech at Columbia University, in which he urges media companies to recognize their special civic responsibilities.

NEW YORK — Pressures by media companies to generate ever-greater profits are threatening the very freedom the nation was built upon, former CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite warned Thursday.

In a keynote address at Columbia University, Cronkite said today's journalists face greater challenges than those from his generation. No longer can journalists count on their employers to provide the necessary resources "to expose truths that powerful politicians and special interests often did not want exposed," he said.

Instead, he said, "They face rounds and rounds of job cuts and cost cuts that require them to do ever more with ever less."

"In this information age and the very complicated world in which we live today, the need for high-quality reporting is greater than ever," he told journalism students and professionals at Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism. "It's not just the journalist's job at risk here. It's American democracy. It is freedom."

Click here to read Jesdanun's summary of Cronkite's speech in its entirety on The Seattle Times website.