Radio
and TV journalist Edward R. Murrow, was born Egbert Roscoe Murrow on April 25, 1908 in Greensboro, North Carolina; died of lung cancer, April 27, 1965 in
Pawling, New York.
Edward R. Murrow is recognized as the dean of 20th century
broadcast journalism. Before Murrow, broadcast journalism was an unwanted
stepbrother of the newspapers, and most radio reporters were writers by trade.
Murrow’s high standards for reporting and superb narrative skills -- his aim
being to report for the ears, not for the page -- raised the bar for all
broadcast reporters who would follow him.
A student orator at Washington State College who served as
president of a national college students’ organization, Murrow backed into
radio as an educational radio show producer. His duties took him to Europe in
1937, and with World War II brewing, Murrow found himself on the air feeding
the hungry demand for news about Hitler as one of America’s first
radio foreign correspondents.
He first captivated American audiences, though, with his dramatic
eyewitness reports from London during the Nazi blitzes of 1940. With bombs and
air-raid sirens sounding in the background, Murrow would intone with his deep,
rich voice, "THIS is London . . . it’s a bomber’s moon out tonight." Very quickly his influence as a journalist
began to eclipse that of the print correspondents, not only because he was
beating their reports by several hours, but because millions of listeners soon
began to empathize with this man whose voice was coming to them in their living
rooms from the heart of the action. Later, Murrow provided commentary while
flying in an Allied bombing run over Germany, and accompanied U.S. troops as
they liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp.
After the War, Murrow became CBS news director, and led CBS into
the television age with his weekly news program See It Now (1951-58),
covering such stories as the Korean War, human rights in South Africa and the
polio vaccine. During these programs, Murrow exuded the same kind of cool,
casual image that he had developed on radio, typically with a lit cigarette in
hand and a cloud of smoke around him. After spending two episodes exposing the
abusive red-baiting methods of Senator Joseph McCarthy with snippets
from McCarthy’s own speeches, McCarthy demanded equal time and accused Murrow
of spreading "propaganda for communist causes." As it turned out,
Murrow gave McCarthy the chance to ruin himself; public opinion turned
dramatically against McCarthy after his angry response, and within a year
McCarthy had been censured by the Senate.
In 1954, Murrow had also introduced a celebrity interview
show, Person to Person (1954-59) which featured in-depth
interviews of such people as Eleanor Roosevelt, Groucho
Marx, Marilyn Monroe and Duke Ellington. Advertisers began to
pull their support from See It Now in 1955 due to the
controversial nature of Murrow’s reports, leading Murrow to launch an attack
against the institution of television in a speech to TV and radio news
directors. Arguing that commercial
interests were using the medium to "distract, delude, amuse and
insulate" viewers. In 1958, CBS cancelled See It Now, but
Murrow continued to do occasional news documentaries, such as his
highly-acclaimed report on the conditions of migrant workers, "Harvest of
Shame" (1960).
In 1961, Murrow left CBS to accept an appointment by John
Kennedy as head of the U.S. Information Agency, which had as its mission
informing the world about American culture and democratic principles; he served
there until 1964. George Clooney’s film about the Joe McCarthy feud, Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), named
for Murrow’s sign-off slogan and starring David Strathairn as Murrow, is highly
recommended.
"It has always
seemed to me the real art in this business is not so much moving information or
guidance or policy five or ten thousand miles. That is an electronic problem.
The real art is to move it the last three feet in face-to-face conversation." -- Edward
R. Murrow.
Labels: Journalism, Pop Culture, TV
