Watching those clips, you didn't see the talking head meltdown that you see these days because back then, you had to act professional and at least pretend to be neutral when broadcasting the news.
Walter Cronkite - a great cure for insomnia by the way. I never did see why he was so worshipped as he was. Towards the end of the clip you linked, a young Dan Rather tells us why Reagan won: Reagan ran a classy campaign and didn't make any mistakes and then sealed the deal during the debates. On the other hand, Carter looked hapless and didn't give the American reason any good reason to re-elect him.
Sounds like a carbon copy of this campaign.