Edward Roscoe Morrow died on 27th April 1965 of lung cancer.
In an age when accusations are rarely backed up with concrete evidence we can learn from one of the best. Edward R Murrow’s forensic take down of Senator Joseph McCarthy has become one of the most infamous media responses to political oppression in history.
Senator McCarthy’s attempt to conduct a witch hunt against anyone who he claimed were not loyal Americans eventually lead to his censure and political and social isolation.
‘After his condemnation and censure, Joseph McCarthy continued to perform his senatorial duties for another two and a half years. But his career as a major public figure had been irreparably ruined. His colleagues in the Senate obviously avoided him; his speeches on the Senate floor were delivered to a near-empty chamber or they were received with intentional and conspicuous displays of inattention. The press that had once recorded his every public statement now ignored him, and outside speaking engagements dwindled almost to nothing. President Eisenhower, finally freed of McCarthy’s political intimidation, quipped to his Cabinet that McCarthyism was now “McCarthywasm”‘
It was Edward R Murrow’s journalism that made him so well respected. By taking on the likes of McCarthy and having been a WW2 war correspondent he had a pedigree few journalists have been able to match since.
And if you have not watched ‘Goodnight and Goodluck’ with David Strathairn, Patricia Clarkson, George Clooney about the above historical incident it is a must watch.
Here is an absolutely riveting clip in which Edward Murrow sums up, amongst other things, what television has become:
