Tim Cuprisin: Is Murrow-style, "Advocacy Journalism" Set To Make A Comeback?
The release of George Clooney's "Good Night, and Good Luck," a big-screen docudrama on pioneering broadcast newsman Edward R. Murrow, raises a natural question a half-century after he tangled with Wisconsin's own Sen. Joseph McCarthy:
Who are Murrow's heirs in television news today?
One of the veterans of Murrow's CBS News team, 89-year-old Daniel Schorr, now a senior news analyst with National Public Radio, has a quick answer.
"There has been no real Murrow since, and I doubt that there will be. I think that the television industry has changed so much," he said in a telephone interview.
Television is an unbelievably different place from the landscape Murrow knew in the 1950s. He created the radio version of CBS News as Europe drifted to war in the late 1930s and made the move to television in the 1950s with "See It Now," a weekly program. He was never an anchor. But the team he first assembled during World War II went on to form the heart of the network's news operation.
Murrow used television as a platform to challenge McCarthy's crusade against alleged Communist infiltration of government. Some historians credit Murrow with helping to bring about the Republican's censure by his fellow senators. A confrontation between the two men, the focal point of the film, is the kind of advocacy journalism rarely seen in television since.
Schorr acknowledged that retired CBS anchor Walter Cronkite is the broadcaster most mentioned after Murrow.
"But Walter Cronkite, famous as he was and deserved to be, was a completely different number," Schorr said. "He was 'Uncle Walter' and people trusted him because he was very careful about expressing himself until, at the end, he had to say that the Vietnam War wasn't winnable. At that point you got a different Cronkite."
In Murrow's day, anchors like Cronkite didn't exist in the form they would acquire in the 1960s when networks launched half-hour nightly newscasts. And those nightly news programs don't command the audience today that they once did, as viewers have moved elsewhere, including to the cable news channels. New personalities have been created who bear little resemblance to the kinds of TV journalists present at the creation of the medium.
Or do they?
One of those news personalities is Geraldo Rivera, who reported live from New Orleans for Fox News Channel after Hurricane Katrina struck two months ago. He sees some of the coverage of that disaster as following in the tradition set by Murrow.
"Shep Smith was magnificent," Rivera said. "Anderson Cooper was also very good."
Smith is with Fox News, Cooper with CNN. Rivera isn't alone in citing the cable news anchors for their work from New Orleans, tracing their style back a half-century.
[Editor's Note: This is a very short excerpt from a much longer piece. Please see the Journal-Sentinel for more.]
Who are Murrow's heirs in television news today?
One of the veterans of Murrow's CBS News team, 89-year-old Daniel Schorr, now a senior news analyst with National Public Radio, has a quick answer.
"There has been no real Murrow since, and I doubt that there will be. I think that the television industry has changed so much," he said in a telephone interview.
Television is an unbelievably different place from the landscape Murrow knew in the 1950s. He created the radio version of CBS News as Europe drifted to war in the late 1930s and made the move to television in the 1950s with "See It Now," a weekly program. He was never an anchor. But the team he first assembled during World War II went on to form the heart of the network's news operation.
Murrow used television as a platform to challenge McCarthy's crusade against alleged Communist infiltration of government. Some historians credit Murrow with helping to bring about the Republican's censure by his fellow senators. A confrontation between the two men, the focal point of the film, is the kind of advocacy journalism rarely seen in television since.
Schorr acknowledged that retired CBS anchor Walter Cronkite is the broadcaster most mentioned after Murrow.
"But Walter Cronkite, famous as he was and deserved to be, was a completely different number," Schorr said. "He was 'Uncle Walter' and people trusted him because he was very careful about expressing himself until, at the end, he had to say that the Vietnam War wasn't winnable. At that point you got a different Cronkite."
In Murrow's day, anchors like Cronkite didn't exist in the form they would acquire in the 1960s when networks launched half-hour nightly newscasts. And those nightly news programs don't command the audience today that they once did, as viewers have moved elsewhere, including to the cable news channels. New personalities have been created who bear little resemblance to the kinds of TV journalists present at the creation of the medium.
Or do they?
One of those news personalities is Geraldo Rivera, who reported live from New Orleans for Fox News Channel after Hurricane Katrina struck two months ago. He sees some of the coverage of that disaster as following in the tradition set by Murrow.
"Shep Smith was magnificent," Rivera said. "Anderson Cooper was also very good."
Smith is with Fox News, Cooper with CNN. Rivera isn't alone in citing the cable news anchors for their work from New Orleans, tracing their style back a half-century.
[Editor's Note: This is a very short excerpt from a much longer piece. Please see the Journal-Sentinel for more.]