I am too young to have heard the eloquent broadcasts of Edward R. Murrow. But that does not lessen my appreciation of him.
In my office hangs a Murrow poster: a Museum of Broadcasting photo of him with the ever present cigarette dangling from his fingertips.
From my father's album collection, I inherited one of the "I Can Hear It Now" LPs, and I have listened to it many times. In my video
collection, I own the very first "See It Now" broadcast Murrow did for CBS, which includes a very young Don Hewitt in the control room.
Up until recently, it was not possible to locate any of Murrow's original broadcasts, but that has recently changed.
For those who teach and want to add a valuable resource to your collection, I recommend: World War II on the Air: Edward R. Murrow and the
Broadcasts That Riveted a Nation, a book/CD compilation.
Aside from the poster, LP, and videotape, I have the comprehensive biography of Murrow written by Joseph Persico and a copy of "See It Now,"
a book that combines images and text from some of the best of those CBS News broadcasts of the 1950s ( including The Case of
Lieutenant Milo Radulovich).
This spring (2004) I came across Edward R. Murrow and the Birth of Broadcast Journalism a concise book by former
National Public Radio host Bob Edwards. The book begins by quoting from the World War II broadcast which many will agree is
Murrow's most famous from atop a building in London as German bombers approached.
The poet Archibald MacLeish paid tribute to Murrow saying: " You burned the city of London in our houses and we felt the flames that
burned it. You laid the dead of London at our doors and we knew that the dead were our dead....were mankind's dead...."
Edwards admires Murrow and this revealing book is a loving tribute to the man who created modern day broadcast journalism. It was
Murrow who was brought up to love language; who attracted the best and brightest journalists of their time to help deliver the riveting news
from Europe, Asia and Africa to the US; and who fought the establishment when he saw radio and television heading down the path to trivialization and trash.
Edwards allows us to know Murrow the man as well as the journalist. The readers of this book will revel in the words of the man who painted
pictures with his writing. This is a book for every student of history and every one of us who is fond of news. It will remind you how good news
used to be and how it might be again, if the industry would focus on what really matters: objective reporting.
