Let's do some fun research, DU! (re: Edward R. Murrow)

[Blue-Jay]

What I'm specifically interested in is how McCarthy (& the McCarthy-ites of the time) responded to Murrow when he exposed the evils of McCarthy's commie witch hunts. I'm sure that there are lots of parallels to today's various abuses of power.

Maybe somebody already has some links bookmarked?

The people listened then. Why aren't they listening now?

[teach1st]

1. See It Now transcript

http://honors.umd.edu/HONR269J/archive/Murrow540309.html

McCarthy: If a stupid, arrogant or witless man in a position of power appears before our Committee and is found aiding the Communist Party, he will be exposed. The fact that he might be a General places him in no special class as far as I am concerned. Apparently -- apparently, the President and I now agree on the necessity of getting rid of Communists. We apparently disagree on how we should handle those who protect Communists. When the shouting and the tumult dies, the American people and the President will realize that this unprecedented mud slinging against the Committee by the extreme left wing elements of press and radio was caused solely because another Fifth Amendment Communist was finally dug out of the dark recesses and exposed to the public view.

Murrow (points to a chart): Senator McCarthy claims that only the left wing press criticized him on the Zwicker case. Of the fifty large circulation newspapers in the country, these are the left wing papers that criticized. These are the ones which supported him. The ratio is about three to one against the Senator. Now let us look at some of these left wing papers that criticized the Senator.

[Blue-Jay]

4. Nice resource. Thanks!

Bookmarked.

[Cleita]

2. Having been witness to those events, first I believe

Murrow was a Republican and McCarthy a Democrat so it wasn't hard for him to go after him. However, McCarthy's victims were all liberals, so in exposing him he aided all liberals that could have been caught up in that witch hunt.

Sorry I don't have any links cause I don't have time to look some up so I'm just going by memory here and my opinion.

[Blue-Jay]

3. OK, but the point isn't "Republican vs. Democrat".

The point IS "abuse of power vs. willingness to expose said abuses."

It seems like today's media is unwilling to question the abuses of power that are currently prevalent.

[Berry Cool]

7. After Murrow made his statements about McCarthy, he invited feedback.

CBS invited McCarthy to come on See It Now and to have his own time to rebut what Murrow had said about him. In other words, Murrow was saying, "if we said anything about him that was not true or was misleading, we invite him to use our airtime to rectify our statements."

McCarthy took him up on the offer. He recorded a lengthy statement that was aired on See It Now.

The funny thing was, he didn't spend a single second attempting to rebut or correct anything Murrow had said about him. He spent the entire time trying to slime Murrow as a Communist, accusing him and attempting to link him to various Communist organizations. He accused him of participating in a US-Soviet cross-cultural education program. He accused him of belonging to a Communist union in the past. And he hauled out reviews and articles from various Communist publications in which the authors sang Murrow's praises for his newscasts, implying that if a Communist publication approved of what he was saying on his newscasts, that made him a Communist.

(I know this because I own the Murrow DVD collection, and the rebuttal is included.)

When Murrow has the opportunity to speak next, he explains all the ways in which McCarthy tried to associate him with various Communist organizations to which he did not belong. He also pointed out that McCarthy never appeared to feel the need to correct a single thing Murrow had said about him.

[Cleita]

9. For sure Edward Murrow was a true journalist regardless of

his political leanings and he took his job of informing the public seriously.

[Individualist]

8. Your memory is wrong

McCarthy was a damn republican. http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=M000315

[Cleita]

10. You are right. I wasn't really sure. I was a kid back then and

my parents, who were Republicans, were so down on him I guess I thought he was a Democrat. That's what I get for posting and not double checking, but I was in a hurry.

[Mist]

5. this looks interesting:

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2005/12/more_mccarthyis.html

don't really have time right now to do in-depth google search!

[shifting_sands]

6. McCarthy

Joe McCarthy was a Republican Senator from Wisconsin and his ruthless attacks on the entertainment and business and political and accusing them of being Communists turned out to be a political ploy by McCarthy that just took off. There was some attempt to attack Murrow but by that time the country was so sick and tired of Joe McCarthy and what he was doing and Murrow had so much respect as a commentator, ole Joe didn't get very far.