Edward R. Murrow (American broadcast journalist)  

                                            (credit: Wikimedia Commons)    

Edward R. Murrow And The Current Dilemma In America

Among journalists who are based in the U.S., probably the most prestigious award that they can hope to receive is the Edward R. Murrow Award. It is given for outstanding quality and integrity in broadcast journalism. Murrow worked for the CBS network, gathering and broadcasting news to listeners and later, with the advent of television, to viewers.  He got famous first in the early years of WW2 for broadcasting live (on radio) from London while the city was being bombed by the German Luftwaffe. He stayed popular through the war and after it ended and had many successes, making programs that are still seen as models of journalistic integrity in writing, commentating, filming, and editing.

However, in today’s world he is probably best remembered for his response to the “witch hunt” activities of Senator Joseph McCarthy and his cohorts.

                                     U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy 

                                          (credit: Wikimedia Commons) 

In the early 1950s, McCarthy fired accusations at all kinds of people, seeking – he claimed – to expose hidden Communists trying to undermine the U.S. in every aspect of its national life. The Congressional investigations that followed these accusations led to the “blacklisting” of many artists, writers, directors, actors, diplomats, and even, for a while, members of the armed forces. These people – whether they were found guilty or not – would then find it almost impossible to get work anywhere in the U.S.

By thoughtful, well-argued analysis, Murrow revealed that most of McCarthy’s accusations were groundless, while they were at the same time irresponsibly, recklessly damaging to the lives of individuals unlucky enough to have become his targets. CBS and Murrow’s popularity rose while McCarthy’s declined.  

McCarthy was officially censured by the U.S. Senate in late 1954. 

In one of the broadcasts critiquing McCarthy’s activities, Murrow quoted from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Cassius is lamenting to Brutus how far from the courage and idealism of their forefathers the current crop of Romans have fallen, especially as that moral decay was being revealed in the wild popularity – near worship – of Julius Caesar. Cassius is certain that Caesar is not morally superior to, or even equal to, many other leading men in Rome at the time.

So why was Caesar on the verge of becoming the dictator of Rome? Why were Romans on the brink of losing their democracy? Cassius thinks he knows:

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars

But in ourselves that we are underlings.”

As Murrow explained when he offered this quote to his viewers, Cassius means that Caesar has gained so much popularity and is now threatening to become a dictator because too many Romans have, by their cowardice and indifference in political matters, allowed him to reach this height. Or in plainer language, “it’s our own damn fault”. The public turned against McCarthy. And thus, Edward Murrow, a heroic journalist, brought down the biggest bully of his era.

Or so the mythology among many in the U.S. tells the story. But was Murrow the integral chess piece in the struggle to stop Tail Gunner Joe?

Some critics at the time felt that Murrow actually made little difference in the struggle to bring down McCarthy. Those critics argued what really happened was that McCarthy, after years of destroying the lives of relatively powerless individuals, finally made the mistake of picking on some adversaries more his own size, namely some high-ranking officers of the U.S. Army. That made President Eisenhower mad. Ike was ex-Army and president. In political terms, he was a bigger guy than Joe. Then, McCarthy got cut down to size.

Years later, critics (Chomsky) said similar things about the Watergate Affair.

                                              U.S. President Richard Nixon 

                                               (credit: Wikimedia Commons) 

In 1973-74, when Nixon and his cronies ordered their henchmen to burglarize the offices of the Democratic National Committee, retribution did find them. Then, the Watergate investigations were triggered. Then, Nixon was ousted. The problem for Nixon was that the DNC was just as big as he was.

But Nixon and/or his crew had likely ordered National Guardsmen at Kent State University to shoot into crowds of anti-war demonstrators in May 1970. The Guardsmen wounded 9 and killed 4. After a whole series of investigations … no arrests were ever made. The kids were physical bodies, but political nobodies.

The charged politics of the US have kicked up another “Caesar”, it seems. Like the original one and his descendants, Joe and Dick, the new Caesar is looking extremely dangerous. In the myth world of the media, commentators are lining up to be the new, articulate, fearless Ed Murrow. They dream of leading a tv crusade against the new would-be seizer who is trying to seize power.

I don’t expect tv commentators to fix US politics. I know I sound cynical, but actually, I’m hopeful today. Why? Because the latest Caesar has – I think – finally picked on someone more his own size: the FBI. If events now go the way they have at other times in US history, Don Jon may finally have gone too far. The FBI are not guys you tell ill-trained, ill-armed thugs to go after.  

So let me end this post with a ray of hope. The corrupted currents of today’s world swirl harder and faster than did the currents of Julius Caesar’s world, or the worlds of Tail Gunner Joe or Tricky Dickie, for that matter.

In short, I now dare to hope that the guilty are about to get their just deserts. You don’t threaten the FBI.

                                                Seal of the FBI 

                                             (credit: Wikimedia Commons)