Neal Gabler: Ed Murrow's Real Legacy
[Neal Gabler, the author of "Winchell: Gossip, Power and the Culture of Celebrity," is writing a biography of Walt Disney.]
EVEN now, 40 years after his death, Edward R. Murrow remains the gold standard of American journalism - "the patron saint of my profession," as the radio host Bob Edwards called him in a biography last year. Murrow's vivid reports from wartime Europe for CBS radio brought unprecedented eloquence and immediacy to the medium. His documentaries for CBS television brought an unabashedly compassionate vision to the dispossessed and disempowered. And his famous confrontations with the red-baiting Senator Joseph McCarthy on "See It Now," chronicled in George Clooney's acclaimed new film, "Good Night, and Good Luck," brought courage and conscience to television news. Murrow was, as a panel on Mr. Clooney's film at the New York Film Festival put it, the one mainstream journalist who dared "speak truth to power."
Such is Murrow's legacy that his name is often invoked to demonstrate the shortcomings of contemporary journalism, where it is almost inconceivable to imagine any TV reporter directly challenging the powers that be, or any broadcast mogul supporting him in doing so, as CBS's William S. Paley, albeit reluctantly, supported Murrow (which only goes to show that Murrow's bequest is honored more in the breach than in practice).
But Murrow left another legacy, one that has had a much more powerful - and in many ways worrisome - impact on his profession. Beyond anything else, Edward R. Murrow brought stardom and dramatic values to the news, not the least of which was a stirring sense of righteous advocacy.
Almost from the moment Murrow began delivering his dispatches from a Europe on the brink of war, he was no ordinary reporter. He behaved differently from other reporters. When war began, he thrust himself in the middle of the action, holding out his microphone so that listeners could hear the explosions during the London Blitz, in the process turning himself into a protagonist of the battle as well as an observer of it....
Murrow's admirers justifiably celebrate this tradition, and his instincts have been affirmed by history. Mr. Cronkite did change the course of the war, just as CNN's Anderson Cooper, Fox News's Shepard Smith and others who challenged the governmental response to Hurricane Katrina forced officials to act. But journalistic crusades can cut both ways. Not every news celebrity is as consistently on the side of the angels as Murrow was, or is as scrupulous in distinguishing advocacy from mere opinion-mongering, showboating and, worse, partisanship. If a line runs from Murrow to Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw and "Nightline," it also runs to Bill O'Reilly, Chris Matthews and "The Barbara Walters Specials."
They are all Murrow's heirs, not because they speak truth to power or because they are guided by conscience or because they adhere to any high-minded principle as he did. They are Murrow's heirs because they all demonstrate an understanding that stardom matters, that news without dramatic form isn't likely to survive. This may not be Edward R. Murrow's proudest legacy, but it may very well be his most enduring one.
Read entire article at NYT
EVEN now, 40 years after his death, Edward R. Murrow remains the gold standard of American journalism - "the patron saint of my profession," as the radio host Bob Edwards called him in a biography last year. Murrow's vivid reports from wartime Europe for CBS radio brought unprecedented eloquence and immediacy to the medium. His documentaries for CBS television brought an unabashedly compassionate vision to the dispossessed and disempowered. And his famous confrontations with the red-baiting Senator Joseph McCarthy on "See It Now," chronicled in George Clooney's acclaimed new film, "Good Night, and Good Luck," brought courage and conscience to television news. Murrow was, as a panel on Mr. Clooney's film at the New York Film Festival put it, the one mainstream journalist who dared "speak truth to power."
Such is Murrow's legacy that his name is often invoked to demonstrate the shortcomings of contemporary journalism, where it is almost inconceivable to imagine any TV reporter directly challenging the powers that be, or any broadcast mogul supporting him in doing so, as CBS's William S. Paley, albeit reluctantly, supported Murrow (which only goes to show that Murrow's bequest is honored more in the breach than in practice).
But Murrow left another legacy, one that has had a much more powerful - and in many ways worrisome - impact on his profession. Beyond anything else, Edward R. Murrow brought stardom and dramatic values to the news, not the least of which was a stirring sense of righteous advocacy.
Almost from the moment Murrow began delivering his dispatches from a Europe on the brink of war, he was no ordinary reporter. He behaved differently from other reporters. When war began, he thrust himself in the middle of the action, holding out his microphone so that listeners could hear the explosions during the London Blitz, in the process turning himself into a protagonist of the battle as well as an observer of it....
Murrow's admirers justifiably celebrate this tradition, and his instincts have been affirmed by history. Mr. Cronkite did change the course of the war, just as CNN's Anderson Cooper, Fox News's Shepard Smith and others who challenged the governmental response to Hurricane Katrina forced officials to act. But journalistic crusades can cut both ways. Not every news celebrity is as consistently on the side of the angels as Murrow was, or is as scrupulous in distinguishing advocacy from mere opinion-mongering, showboating and, worse, partisanship. If a line runs from Murrow to Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw and "Nightline," it also runs to Bill O'Reilly, Chris Matthews and "The Barbara Walters Specials."
They are all Murrow's heirs, not because they speak truth to power or because they are guided by conscience or because they adhere to any high-minded principle as he did. They are Murrow's heirs because they all demonstrate an understanding that stardom matters, that news without dramatic form isn't likely to survive. This may not be Edward R. Murrow's proudest legacy, but it may very well be his most enduring one.