From 1947 through 1986, Gale Cook (pictured) played a pivotal role with the San Francisco Examiner, a once great newspaper which today functions as a free, web-anchored entity. In the wake of Cook’s death on Tuesday at age 92, Marin Independent Journal reporter Nels Johnson gathered heartfelt tributes from friends and colleagues.

The headiest praise for Cook, who worked as an editor, reporter, and Sacramento bureau chief, comes from former San Francisco mayor Art Agnos. The lifelong politician calls Cook the “Walter Cronkite of the legislative press corps” and says he was “one of the very few heroes” in his 40-year-career as a public servant. There’s also this great tidbit from when Cook first joined the Examiner:

One of Cook’s assignments near the end of that first year was to join other San Francisco staffers in a desperate hunt for Apollinaris water sought by William Randolph Hearst Sr. in Los Angeles to soothe a stomach ache. Examiner staffers found the water, besting Hearst staffers in other regions who could not.

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USC’s Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism just announced the winners of its annual Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Television Political Journalism. No LA winners this year, but KPBS, San Diego, owned by San Diego State University, picked up a nod in the “Public Station” category. Salinas’ KION/KCBA Central Coast News also won for best Local Broadcast (Small Market).

Full list of winners after the jump:

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This afternoon, former LA Times editor John S. Carroll received the 63rd William Allen White Foundation award from the University of Kansas’ journalism school. He took the opportunity to share some observations about the current state of the news business.

Carroll suggested print journalism has suffered three successive and devastating blows from the introduction of corporations in the newsroom, the advent of cable television and the arrival of Internet. He also urged students and faculty to do better. Via The University Daily Kansan:

“We need to find a way to separate journalism from trash journalism,” Carroll said, meaning journalists who only seek to report on celebrities and those who use their journalism as propaganda or marketing.

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James Wall, who played Captain Kangaroo’s friendly neighbor “Mr. Baxter” on the 60′s TV show, died in his sleep Wednesday night. Aside from his television celebrity, Wall worked behind the scenes as a stage manager at CBS for more than 50 years, overseeing some of the network’s most important broadcasts. CBS News writes more about his accomplishments.

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Author and journo Bridget Kinsella sent us this about how Walter Cronkite who died today at 92, inspired her:

Walter Cronkite Made Me Twitter

When I heard that Walter Cronkite was gravely ill, I immediately thought about the one and only time I met the news legend. It was the day after Election Day 1997; I was a student at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and I was running on no sleep, having pulled an all-nighter to be part of the J-School’s first election website.

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We’ve gotten several reports that Walter Cronkite, 92 has died.