Posted on 09/26/2004 7:07:57 AM PDT by OESY
It has taken more than 40 years since Edward R. Murrow's retirement for CBS to wreck the brand name Morrow created for the network's news department.
The current Rathergate fiasco is a sad commentary on the difficulty corporate cultures have remembering the values that made them great. And no one would have understood the gravity of this "mistake," as Dan Rather finally called it, more than Ed Murrow....
Murrow foresaw the end as well as the beginning. In a speech before the Radio-Television News Directors Association in 1958 Murrow warned: " . . . unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse and insulate us, then . . . those who finance it, those who look at it and those who work at it may see a totally different picture too late."
...Murrow had just invented what would "become the routine format for the presentation of news. It not only had multiple points of origin, it also had included both reporting and analysis of breaking news." Given the technology of the day it was a staggering achievement.
Edwards' marvelous book is a reminder of a time when the aspirations of broadcast journalism were actually exceeded by its accomplishments. And it is all there — from Murrow's lying about his academic achievement to get jobs, to his remarkable ability to flatter powerful men like Adolph Ochs at The New York Times, his reporting during the London blitz, his unmasking of Joseph McCarthy, his losing battle with "the suits" of his day for the independence of CBS News and finally his brave fight against the cancer that killed him.
It is hard to recall a biography this brief so powerful and so relevant to our own times.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Thomas Lipscomb reported on the CBS News document controversy for the Chicago Sun-Times. E-mail: tom@lipscomb.net
Lets see, a book about a liberal icon written by another liberal (demi)icon...
You're right. Murrow was very much in the mold of both Cronkite and Rather -- a pompous, lying Liberal who slanted the news to fit his agenda. No nostalgia for him.
" . . . unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse and insulate us, then . . . those who finance it, those who look at it and those who work at it may see a totally different picture too late."Although he was liberal and cut from the same cloth...this quote nails to a tee what happened with Rather and what has happened to the MSM.
They see their own truth and present it as such, when it is nothing more than fabrication and spin, far removed from fact, integrity, or truth.
I'd say it only took 20 years, but that people are only catching on now.
In 1939 Hitler signed a nonaggression pact with Stalin. American "progressives" opposed going to war against Hitler. In August of 1941 Hitler attacked Stalin. American "progressives" demanded we declare war on Hitler. W.W.II was the last time American "progressives" supported the United States in war.
On March 9, 1954 Edward R. Murrow signaled that it was time to kill what the CP/USA had labeled McCarthyism. Five years later Joseph McCarthy was dead. Forty years after that Joseph McCarthy was proved right (on the main issues).
Yet Murrow said: "If none of us ever read a book that was 'dangerous,' nor had a friend who was 'different,' or never joined an organization that advocated 'change,' we would all be just the kind of people Joe McCarthy wants."
I ask, Is it terror to ask American "progressives" to explain why they support our enemies? Why they join / support organizations that demand the kinds of changes our enemies want?
Murrow said: "We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty."
Me: We must not confuse the Constitution with a suicide pact.
If Murrow were alive today, he'd take Rather to the woodshed: "You clumsy dumba**, you got caught. Never go to the air until your lies are airtight."
And it is all there — from Murrow's lying about his academic achievement to get jobs, to his remarkable ability to flatter powerful men like Adolph Ochs at The New York Times, his reporting during the London blitz, his unmasking of Joseph McCarthy, his losing battle with "the suits" of his day for the independence of CBS News and finally his brave fight against the cancer that killed him.
Translation: He was a serial fibber and suckup who felt that he should be accountable to no one. CBS News has followed his example ever since.
Right. Murrow could pull it off better than Rather, but also had the advantage of not having to deal with any kind of media opposition.
This article should be edited to read "for CBS to wreck the illusion foisted on the public by Murrow". Murrow was as much of a communist as Rather.
It occured to me this morning that one of the Toffler Books had a segment about an information based society in which the will of the people, on a local and regional basis, would be immediately known because of our ability to communicate via the global network.
The Tofflers did not get as much right as they would have wished, however, it is the case that the end of the one voice big brother alphabet soup news can now be acknowledged as fading into history.
It is liberating.
Here is from their own website describing their 1930s "accomplishments":
"The Institute established the Emergency Committee to Aid Displaced German Scholars, an important activity which eventually aided such distinguished individuals as Martin Buber, Paul Tillich and Jacques Maritain. Edward R. Murrow began his career as IIE's Assistant Director at this time, helping to find lectureships for these refugee scholars. IIE also assisted those fleeing from Spanish and Italian fascism. Expanding its activities outside Europe, IIE opened the first exchanges with the Soviet Union and Latin America."
Notice that IIE opened exchanges in the Soviet Union at a time when the Soviet Union was in its second decade of murdering millions of its own citizens. IIE helped victims of Germany, Spain, and Italy however. Golly.
One of its accomplishments in the 1940s was it began the administration of the graduate student component of the Fulbright Program -- IIE's largest program, still active today. (The Fulbright Scholarship) If I am not mistaken the Fulbright Scholarship is a boondoggle created by federal legislation and funded by taxpayers.
We have all become aware of Fulbright's "greatest" accomplishment of the 1970s. The appearance of John Kerry before his committee and their discussion of how to get Nixon to "disengage" the American "war criminals" from Vietnam.
As I stated above. W.W.II helped defend communism from Hitler and American "progressives" supported the U.S. That was the last time that American "progressives" supported the U.S. in war. (Re: Kerry, Fulbright, Cronkite, et al.) Why? McCarthy wanted to know and millions of us supported him then and now.
Screw Edward R. Murrow.
Whether Murrow or Cronkheit, Rather or Moyers, CBS has always longed for clear good vs. evil battles in a world that doesn't always provide them. They hungered to lay down an agenda for the country and the world. That Murrow ended up heading a government agency indicates just how high their expectations were.
There's nothing wrong with passion in journalism or with wanting to change the world, but CBS was never really honest about its partisanship, and played at objectivity while being anything but. A better organization would have made a choice, and either tried to moderate its ideological enthusiasms or else taken the opposite route and renounced the pretence of objectivity.
If one wants to find a difference between Murrow and Rather, it would be this: Murrow was resourceful, imaginative, and instinctive, and instinctive, creating a news environment as he went along. Rather came along later when TV news was established and institutionalized. He was given high status and privileges without having done much to earn them. For all Rather's faux folksiness he works and lives in a Manhattan bubble and rarely sees or experiences anything outside of it.
More accurately, McCarthy put Murrow on the defensive because Murrow had some questionable associates:
Murrow, like many other liberal journalists, became increasingly concerned about the impact that Joe McCarthy anti-communist campaign was having on America. He was particularly upset by the attacks on George Marshall, a man Murrow regarded as "the greatest living American". A friend of Murrow's, Larry Duggan, Director of the Institute of International Education (IIC), was also accused of being a member of the Communist Party and ordered to appear before the House of Un-American Activities Committee. Unwilling to name radicals he had associated with in his youth, Duggan committed suicide by jumping from his sixteenth-floor office.
Murrow now decided to speak out and complained about McCarthy's treatment of Henry [actually s/b "Harry"--Fedora] Dexter White, who Joe McCarthy had recently accused of being a communist spy. Murrow was now accused of being part of the "Moscow conspiracy" and it was suggested that as "an anti-anti-Communist was as dangerous as a Communist".
Recent disclosures have confirmed that both Duggan and White were Soviet agents.
Is anyone archiving CBS-related stuff? I've been collecting some notes related to my comments in #12 and was wondering who else might be researching that area.
Well, I started these:
-60 Minutes to Infamy- those forged memos and The Shot Heard Round the World--
-Pajamahadeen Rule... rise of the New Media--
But in the interests of not having so much going that I lose track ( or lose my mind keeping up ) I began simply appending "anything related to the 2004 campaign- including the CBS stuff"-- at the "last" of this:
-John Kerry- some selected, informative links...--
The ne plus ultra of all is this one:
DUBOB 11-- even *more* tales from the Dark Underbelly of the Beast.....
...go to the "last" and work back for "every story I think we need to be aware of."
Ann Coulter did a very good job of "archiving" truth about McCarthy in "Treason.'
Thanks! I'll check those out.
Yep!
W.W.II was the last time American "progressives" supported the United States in war.
Yes, and that was because the U.S. sided with the U.S.S.R. When Hitler invaded Russia "progressive" (read Communist) American playwright Lillian Hellman, who was celebrated by elitist intellectuals, moaned: "They have invaded the Motherland!"
Ed Murrow was cut from the same "progressive" mold.
Thank you!
HUAC
Like "McCarthyism" HUAC (House of Un-American Activities Committee) was a term of derision. I am not sure if CP/USA first used HUAC but for sure the anit-anti-communists loved it.
The House Committee on Un-American Activities I believe is the correct title.
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