Edward Murrow Scribed

Wires and Lights in a Box: How Edward R. Murrow Invented Broadcast Journalism

Steven Chen Sally Cloninger Ready Camera 1 The Evergreen State College 13 November, 2009

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Public service broadcasting and minority interest programming was not an idea that was new to early television. Even in radio, the large networks were morally obligated to include a certain amount of “public service” programs in their schedule. This encompassed programming on religious, educational and newsworthy subjects. Because of their assumed inability to bring in profits through advertising, they were considered “sustaining programs” and were not granted ideal time slots on the air. Edward Murrow was one of the only people who understood the principle of public service programming. “Investment bankers run the networks. To them, they own CBS or NBC or ABC as they might own a lumber company or as they might own a mining company or as if they own an automobile company. They don’t think they owe anything back. Ed thought they owed a lot,” said Fred Friendly, Murrow’s co-producer for See it Now (This Reporter). Because it was not intended to be watched for its entertainment value but as an informative program for the people, Murrow felt dedicated to showing and producing the truth for his audiences. He was so committed to upholding these public service standards, in fact, that he sometimes risked his career and even his life. Edward R. Murrow was hired in 1935 as the director of talks and education for CBS. In 1937, Murrow moved to London to become the chief, and only employee, of European operations (This Reporter). At the annexation of Austria in 1938, Murrow’s career took a sharp turn. He traveled to Vienna trying to expand his one-man team by recruiting a journalist to cover the Anschluss, which turned out to be much more difficult than he had anticipated (This Reporter). He recruited William Shirer, but ended up having to send him to London (Sperber 103). “From then on I started broadcasting myself,” Murrow said, “not because I had any ability at it, but because all the reporters were so busy we couldn’t get them to stop doing their own jobs” (This Reporter). History had been made. Murrow’s broadcast from Vienna was joined by Chen 2

Shirer in London, and several other reports from Paris, Berlin, Rome, and New York (Murrow 20). This was the first time that a news program made up of short reports from around the world had ever been broadcast to the American public (Murrow 20). “This…is London” was being heard more and more frequently as Murrow headed back to London and began reporting regularly. Right from the beginning, Murrow’s words, and almost more importantly his pauses, were instantly powerful. “They came over shortly after blackout time,” said Murrow during one of his broadcasts, “and at a veritable show of flares and incendiaries. One of those nights where you wear your best clothes, because you’re never sure that when you come back home you’ll have anything than the clothes you were wearing” (Bernstein). Ed Murrow was fearless (Edwards 155). During the Blitzkrieg, Murrow stayed in London despite the obvious danger. One night, Murrow suggested to his wife, Janet, that they stop in at a nearby pub. She was too tired so they went home instead. Several minutes later, the pub was destroyed and everyone inside was killed (Bernstein). Murrow reported from the rooftops, describing the bombings in his reports. He even flew along in a bomber on a mission to bomb Berlin (This Reporter). “I never forgot that Murrow did all of this because he wanted me and my family, and all of us back home in America to know …the truth,” Dan Rather said, “for that, for our knowledge of the truth, he risked his life” (Rather). Even though Murrow knew he could be killed at any moment, he chose to stay in London and continue to report the news to the American people. Murrow’s own ethics are what made his reporting stand out (Godfrey 104). He believed that “to be persuasive, we must be believable. To be believable, we must be credible. To be credible, we must be truthful” (Kendrick 466). His dedication to these modest values are what helped to keep Murrow trusted and respected by his listeners and viewers. He tried to break the tradition of bringing the story to the audience and instead transported them into the story itself Chen 3

(Bernstein). “You burned the city of London in our houses and we felt the flames that burned it,” said poet and librarian of Congress Archibald MacLeish of Murrow, “you laid the dead of London at our doors and we knew the dead were our dead – were all men’s dead […] you destroyed the superstition of distance and of time” (Persico 191-2). Murrow had made himself welcome in every American’s home. Now that the war was over, Murrow teamed up with his new partner, Fred Friendly, to produce three albums entitled I Can Hear it Now (Kendrick 316). The albums were an “aural history” which documented recent events, such as FDR’s famous first inaugural address, Hitler, and even some of Murrow’s own reports as they had been broadcast over the radio (Kendrick 316-7). The series was quite a success. The first installment alone sold more than 250,000 copies (Kendrick 317). CBS decided to take the lucrative Murrow-Friendly news team and do a live broadcast version of I Can Hear it Now in a program they shortened to Hear it Now (Sperber 352-3). Six months later, CBS proposed another program idea – this time on television. Murrow was skeptical of the new medium. Like many other early critics, he felt that it would never become as explosively popular as it did. In a speech Murrow gave to the RadioTelevision News Directors Association (RTNDA) in 1958, he said “this instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes it can even inspire. But it can only do so to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is just wires and lights in a box” (Edwards 135). He first proved his point seven years earlier, November 18, 1951, on the first broadcast of See it Now. “This is an old team trying to learn a new trade” he started (The Best of See it Now). Within minutes the show revolutionized broadcast journalism. Murrow had teams ready in San Francisco with live images of the Golden Gate Bridge that he put on a split screen with another team in New York shooting the Brooklyn Bridge, both panning around the skyline of their Chen 4

respective cities at Murrow’s command (The Best of See it Now). Never before had both the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans shared space on a live broadcast. The program went on to report from London, Paris, and Korea which would almost equally transform the medium. (Sperber 355). Murrow sent the Korean reporting crew not only to document the usual daily events of the war, but to go deeper, and took footage of the night they spent with Fox Company, 19th Regiment, 14th Infantry Division (Sperber 355). “We wanted to see the faces [and] hear the voices” Murrow said (Sperber 355). The program focused on the individual soldiers, allowing them each to introduce themselves to the camera. They showed the everyday hardships of the Company (The Best of See it Now). As his sign off, Murrow listed the names of casualties since the filming and added “They may need some blood. Can you spare a pint?” (Sperber 355). In the days following, the Red Cross reported hundreds of thousands of viewers showing up to donate (Finkelstein 119). At the beginning, See it Now’s main concern was informing the public and shied away from many controversial topics (Finkelstein 121). It was televisions “first attempt to report on political and social themes” (Finkelstein 117). Murrow accomplished this by focusing on the “little people” and using them to make a bigger point. “He had a moral code rooted in populism and justice, taking the side of the underdog” (Edwards 154). In one episode, Murrow focused on the efforts of the townsfolk in Omaha, Nebraska who were working incredible hours to protect their town from the flood waters of the Missouri River (Sperber 386). “Last night I came back from a few days on the Missouri river. We have often maintained that this people is never so great as when it has dirt on its hands. We came back with considerable respect and admiration for the people who fought and beat the river” (This Reporter). Murrow loved to report on the every-man because of his own humble roots, growing up in Eastern Washington (This Reporter). Chen 5

Friendly described that Murrow “believed that this was a nation of little people […] He loved little people who stood up against the crowd. And I think that’s the essence of what Ed, who came from a very modest beginning; who had to fight for a place in the sun, believed in” (This Reporter). Reporting on the “little people” would become a trend for See it Now. Another broadcast that changed the course of broadcast journalism was in December of 1952. For this one-hour special, Murrow, four other correspondents, and five 35mm camera crews (nicknamed “the thousand pound pencil”) travelled to Korea to cover the war (This Reporter). The goal, Friendly described, was to shoot “a lot of little pictures and together those mosaics, together, would make up the big picture of the war” (This Reporter). “This is Korea, where a war is going on,” Murrow started. It then cut to a soldier trying to dig a hole and his shovel bouncing off of the frozen ground. “There is a marine, digging a hole in the ground. They dig an awful lot of holes in the ground in Korea” (This Reporter). Murrow followed with a report from the sky, describing the landscape, and went on to interview men about their opinions on the war. “We didn’t cover the war, we covered the soldier” said Mili Lerner Bonsignor, film editor for See it Now (This Reporter). Murrow, Friendly, and their team shot 77,000 feet while in Korea, which, for the final broadcast, had to be edited down to 6,000 feet (Finkelstein 119). Murrow’s understanding that his newscasts were a public service, influenced the way he reported the news. He was the first to cover a war on television, and he did it in the See it Now way, by focusing on the triumphs of the average man. Murrow and Friendly’s friendship grew stronger with each episode, as well as their relationships with the rest of the team. However, Murrow was definitely leader of the pack. “There are those who say that I sometimes put words in Ed’s mouth that he never said. I think that’s probably true. I didn’t do it to be dishonest, I did it to get things done because I knew that Chen 6

Murrow’s word was more powerful than mine,” said Friendly (This Reporter). His voice was so strong that the shows would be powerful enough, even if he only did the narration (Wershba). That isn’t to say that Murrow’s influence wasn’t evident in other aspects of production. “I absorbed all of Ed’s values,” Friendly said, “every scrap of film I edited, I edited with his eyes. Everything I wrote, I wrote with his fingers” (Finkelstein 118). In 1953, the Red Scare was in full stride. “Edward R. Murrow set the standard for courageous reporting. William Paley called him the conscience of CBS. But, as the country entered the McCarthy era, Murrow’s conscience would get him into trouble and his courage would be tested (This Reporter).” Murrow and Friendly decided to take on a story that, to them, symbolized McCarthyism’s clutch on the American people. The program was called The Case of Milo Radulovich. “A few weeks ago, there occurred a few obscure notices in the newspapers about a lieutenant, Milo Radulovich, a lieutenant in the Air Force Reserve” (See it Now). Radulovich who, after eight years of active duty with the Air Force, had been asked to resign after being “classified as a security risk under Air Force Regulation 36-52 because of his close association with Communists or Communist sympathizers” (Kendrick 37). Milo’s sister and father had been accused of reading “subversive newspapers and engaging in questionable activities (Kendrick 37),” however, “there was no question whatever as to the lieutenant’s loyalty (See it Now).” During the hearing Milo had demanded, the evidence against Radulovich and his family was presented in a sealed envelope which, ironically, was not allowed to be opened or shown to anyone, including Milo and his lawyer or the board members overseeing his case (See it Now). The board recommended that the Lieutenant “be severed from the Air Force” (See it Now). Murrow presented that facts and interviews from Milo, his sister and father, even people from his hometown. One man said “if the Air Core or the United States Army or whoever they Chen 7

are that are purging this man, and I believe they are purging him, gets away with it, they are entitled to do it to anybody. To me, to you, to anybody else” (See it Now). Once again, Murrow had taken the story of a “little person” and used it to attack the “big man.” Five weeks later, the Air Force reversed their decision and reinstated Radulovich stating that “the lieutenant was not a security risk, that his association with his sister was not a vital matter for the air force and that his father’s newspaper reading did not really peril the nation’s safety (Kendrick 39).” See it Now had proved the power of television. Murrow and Friendly were victorious. They had seen that their television program really could make a difference. The “weapon of television”, as Murrow put it in his speech to the RTNDA, was cocked and loaded (Edwards 135). “If it hadn’t been for the Milo Radulovich program, I don’t think we ever would have had the intestinal fortitude to do the McCarthy program,” commented Friendly (This Reporter). They waited a while before broadcasting an attack on McCarthy. Murrow “knew when to pause and when to speak,” one of his colleagues said, “and he knew the time was coming for McCarthy to be vulnerable – and he hit (Sperber 429).” The program was slated for March 9th, 1954. However, there was much to do. First, CBS refused to put up money for advertising or let Murrow and Friendly even use the CBS eye logo (Sperber 430). Like the Radulovich program, Murrow and Friendly again self financed an ad in The New York Times (Sperber 430). “If this program goes on the air tomorrow night…the one that McCarthy and his friends will go after is none of us, but Murrow. But weakness in any of our characters or our history would be used against Ed,” describes Friendly, “One person said his wife had once been a part of the young communist league. Ed laughed, sort of somberly […] and he looked up and he said, ‘the terror is right here in this room. We go tomorrow night (This

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Reporter).” Edward Murrow was ready to sacrifice his career in order to bring the truth to the American people. At 10:30pm, Murrow took a deep breath and looked into the camera (Sperber 436). “Good Evening,” he started, “Tonight’s See it Now devotes its entire half hour to a report on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, told mainly in his own words and pictures (See it Now).” For the entire program, Murrow read directly from the script as to “say exactly what we mean to say” (See it Now). He also added that “if the Senator feels that we have done violence to his words or pictures, and desires, so to speak, to answer himself, an opportunity will be afforded him on this program (See it Now).” The program used audio and film recorded from McCarthy’s own speeches and hearings. After taking one of McCarthy’s pieces of evidence and skillfully discrediting it, Murrow said “We read from this document at record, not in defense of Mr. Stevenson but in defense of truth (See it Now).” Murrow discredited McCarthy’s attacks throughout the broadcast. “It was the first time McCarthy’s allegations had been systematically dissected in the full glare of the mass media (Sperber 437).” Murrow closed the program saying: We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason. […] This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy’s methods to keep silent – or for those that approve. […] The actions of the Junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn’t create this situation of fear, he merely exploited it; and rather successfully. Cassius was right. “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.” Good night and good luck. (Sperber 438-9)

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The response was instantaneous. “The calls were pouring in at a rate that made the Radulovich response look stillborn (Sperber 439).” CBS reported more than 12,000 calls and claimed a 10:1 response in favor of Murrow (Thornton). While the rest of the crew was celebrating, Murrow had his mind on other things. He knew that this was just the beginning. McCarthy was quick to accept his invitation but asked for some time to prepare (See it Now). The Junior Senator was scheduled to appear on April 6th, but in the meantime, See it Now broadcast another attack on McCarthy’s methods (Sperber 447). Once again, Murrow chose to document another “little person”. Annie Lee Moss, a low-level code clerk in the pentagon, was being questioned in front of McCarthy’s committee about her ties to the Communist party (See it Now). McCarthy ended up leaving shortly after the hearing had started and left the floor open for John McClellan (See it Now). McClellen took this opportunity to speak out against the hearing. He stated that all of the evidence was hearsay (and in reality, they probably had evidence against one of the other three Annie Lee Moss’ in the DC area) and that whether she was actually a Communist or not, they were not following due process (See it Now). Through this segment about Annie Lee Moss, Murrow was able to show that McCarthy’s methods had gone out of control and had no regard for the people whose lives they were destroying, just by having them appear in front of the questioning panel. Three weeks later, it was McCarthy’s turn on See it Now. Instead of trying to refute the claims made on March 9th, he attempted to smear Murrow personally (See it Now). The entire hour long broadcast, with no interjections from Murrow other than a short introduction and closing, was McCarthy trying to discredit the claims made against him by discrediting the man who made them (Sperber 449). “Murrow’s follow up the next week pointed these facts out. McCarthy’s broadcast had proved Murrow’s point. Jack Gould, a television critic for The New Chen 10

York Times, wrote that “Mr. Murrow only reported as best he could on the use of innuendo, insinuation, the half-truth, and the frantic smear. The Senator, on the other hand, gave the expert’s own version. It may take some time before the Senator realizes he was had (Sperber 449).” While the seeming successes of the battle against McCartyism were evident in Murrow’s work environment, his personal life was in peril. He had not only put his career and reputation on the line when doing these programs, he was receiving threats to himself and even his Son, Casey. While that didn’t mean he would give up on broadcasting controversial news, it would certainly make things harder. Shortly after the McCarthy episodes aired, things took a turn for the worse. “The thanks See it Now received for doing the most significant program in broadcast journalism was to lose both its sponsor and its slot in prime time (Edwards 125).” First, ALCOA, their sponsor from the beginning, dropped their sponsorship (Edwards 125). They no longer needed Murrow to boost their respect and also did not wish to get involved with controversial and political issues, especially after See it Now did a program about a land scandal in Texas that ALCOA was involved with (Edwards 125-6). At the same time, network television had discovered “the game show”. See it Now’s current position in the prime-time schedule as a money losing program stood no chance against the ridiculously profitable imitators of The $64,000 Question (Edwards 126). Murrow’s program was moved to the “Sunday Ghetto”. While this was a less than ideal time slot, Murrow and Friendly continued to produce programs but on a much more irregular basis (Edwards 126). Some of their last broadcasts included following a single pint of blood from a donor all the way to a soldier in Korea, flying through the eye of a hurricane, and even a 2 hour special on the health hazards of smoking, despite Murrow’s habit of smoking four packs a day (Edwards 126, This Reporter). Chen 11

The risks he had taken and the freedoms he had been awarded with See it Now, finally caught up with him during an argument with William Paley over a segment about Hawaiian and Alaskan statehood (Sperber 407). A young Senator from Buffalo brought a complaint about not receiving equal time over the issue directly to top management. In response, the Senator was granted a time slot for rebuttal without consulting Murrow (This Reporter). He felt that this action “undermined his relationship with the company, and that he could not continue with See it Now under such conditions (Sperber 407).” After a long argument with William Paley, Paley decided that the Senator would keep his time slot (This Reporter). “Ed said to him, don’t you want us? Don’t you want to have an instrument like See it Now” recounts Friendly, “Bill Paley patted his stomach and said ‘Yes but I don’t want a pain in my belly every time you do a program’. Ed stride in across the room [and] said ‘that’s the price you have to pay, Bill, it goes with the job’ (This Reporter).” See it Now was cancelled after 7 year of being on the air (Sperber 408). “Paley was trying to make money, not save the world; Murrow believed CBS could do both (Edwards 158).” The recent success of the game shows had made the networks greedy. “Money became the medium’s single driving force (Grossman).” Murrow was so entrenched in creating informative television for the sole purpose public service that he was devastated by the networks disregard for that same type of programming. “He feared that the drive to sell, sell, sell – and nothing but sell – was overwhelming the potential for good, the potential for service of radio and television (Rather).” Murrow had been squeezed out to make room for more profit (This Reporter). On October 15th, 1958, Murrow gave a speech in Chicago at the annual convention of the Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA) (Sperber 412). “The speech Ed Murrow gave […] was a risky speech, and he knew it. It was a bold shot, and he knew it Chen 12

(Rather).” The speech was very important to Murrow. It brought together all of his experiences with radio and television and threw his biggest frustrations at some of the most important people in the industry. Murrow criticized the networks for breaking their promises to operate in the public interest but instead had made television into a “money-making machine” (Grossman). He asked that “news divisions and departments not be held to the same standards of ratings and profits as entertainment and sports (Rather).” Murrow’s passion and anger was hidden by his seemingly calm and collected expression. Murrow persisted: “if radio news is to be regarded as a commodity, only acceptable when saleable, then I don’t care what you call it – I say it isn’t news (Edward R. Murrow).” As the speech continued, it was evident that this speech was Murrow putting himself and his beliefs on display in the most vulnerable setting he could. However, this was also the most effective setting. He continually reminded his audience of their failure to uphold the foundational beliefs of public service: There is no suggestion here that networks or individual stations should operate as philanthropies. But I can find nothing in the Bill of Rights or the Communications Act which says that they must increase their net profits each year, lest the Republic collapse. We are wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent […] our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television […] is being used to distract, delude, amuse, and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it and those whose work it is, may see a totally different picture too late. (Edward R. Murrow) Murrow closed his speech saying, “this instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box (Edward R. Murrow).” Chen 13

Murrow’s dedication to public service broadcasting is inspiring. Not only because he was dedicated to bringing us honest information over our radio and television air waves, but also because he was devoted to making networks continue to provide that information. “Murrow was talking to David Schoenbrun one day in 1945,” author David Halberstam explained, “and he looked to him and said ‘hey kid, what are you going to do after the war?’ and Schoenbrun said ‘I guess I’ll go back to Brooklyn and teach high school French’ and there was a pause and Murrow said ‘kid, how would you like the biggest classroom in the world?’ I’d feel a lot better if the people who owned the networks today thought of it as he did – as the biggest classroom in the world instead of the biggest cash register in the world (This Reporter).” Edward R. Murrow was way ahead of his time in seeing the eventual degradation of news broadcasting and commercialism. His fearlessness to take on “the big man” eventually led to him getting forced out of the industry, but not before he could change history and influence the future of broadcast journalism.

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