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Friday, 09 December 2005 08:24 |
| John North
Editor & Publisher
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Among my colleagues in the news business, our television brethren and their newscasts generally are regarded as lightweights, inasmuch as they and their medium so often pander to mindless escapism and sensationalism (?®If it bleeds, it leads?∆).
I wouldn??t go so far as to sport the popular bumper sticker with the mantra, ?®Kill your TV,?∆ because I know that there are some individuals and programs on TV that defy the norm ?? although the medium??s hypnotizing power, coupled with the passive nature of viewing, seems to be producing a society of uninformed citizens.
Thus, the film ?®Good Night, and Good Luck,?∆ which focuses on broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow??s successful effort to bring down Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy, spotlights a rare exception ?? a truly admirable TV newsman.
Directed by George Clooney and featuring David Strathairn in the lead role, ?®Good Night?∆ is a razzle-dazzle look at a volatile time in America and its TV journalism industry.
This is a good, but not great, film, shot in black-and-white, running 93 minutes and rated PG for mild thematic elements and brief language. While the whirlwind storytelling approach that ?®Good Night?∆ exemplifies is highly popular today, I think it results in a failure to properly build and examine the tragic dimensions of the people
and issues involved.
In 1953, Murrow, a CBS news personality, could sense the pressure on
his colleagues in the news-gathering profession to bow to McCarthy??s
obsession of bringing down all of this country??s subversives.
As a result, the broadcast journalist and his producer, Fred Friendly
(George Clooney), investigate McCarthy??s tactic via the forum of
Murrow??s popular program, ?®See It Now.?∆ Almost simultaneously, they
find they have antagonized their boss, William Paley (Frank Langella),
sponsors and the government.
Even with his job literally on the line, Murrow determinedly continues
to deconstruct McCarthyism with his gutsy televised editorials and
McCarthy??s rebuttals. Eventually, the senator meets his demise.
I admire Murrow as one of the last of a dying breed of courageous TV newscasters with integrity, who were
willing to risk it all in the pursuit of truth and doing the right thing.
Sadly, today??s TV newscasters tend to be chosen for the ability to draw
viewers through their eye-candy appeal and style in front of the
camera, rather through any news-gathering ability. They are merely
highly paid figureheads who read the news.
It would be hard to imagine a network in 2005 tolerating a maverick
like Murrow ?? not so much in ticking off his boss and the government,
but in antagonizing the almighty advertisers. Certainly, in today??s
corporate-driven TV newsroom, major advertisers/sponsors seem to get a free ride.
Murrow cut his teeth in journalism as a war correspondent for CBS Radio
during World War II, where he was widely acknowledged as setting the
gold standard in reporting. He stressed fact-checking, fair quotation
and hard work, about which he was passionate.
Alas, TV news in its infancy held much promise, and, as ?®Good Night?∆
shows, for one shining moment Murrow demonstrated what it could be.
Ironically, today??s news/fluff is exactly what he feared it would
become.
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