Taking some lessons from Murrow and using them today

They also included a link to a website where I discovered one of my favorite movies of all time, Good Night and Good Luck, had been transformed into a Broadway play which was opening at the Winter Garden Theatre.

If you aren’t familiar with the movie, you should make yourself familiar, because it’s one of the best movies about a true story I’ve seen. Now, I will admit, I might be a little biased because it’s a story about one of my heroes, Edward R. Murrow, whom I consider the greatest journalist of all time. 

The story tells the tale of his taking on Joseph McCarthy during the “red scare.” It shows Murrow and his team standing up to a U.S. Senator who was wielding what seemed almost like dictatorial power to try and find Communists in the government. 

Anyone who wasn’t on board with McCarthy’s extreme quest to root out anyone who didn’t see things like he did and to ruin them, jail them, or if they weren’t a natural born American, throw them out of the country held most of America in fear. Millions of Americans blindly followed McCarthy’s crusade, targeting certain groups of people for scorn, harassment, and in some cases attempts to ruin their careers and families.

The movie tells the story of how Murrow was made aware of the case of an Air Force reserve lieutenant who had been discharged from service because of allegations he was a security risk because his sister, who supported liberal causes, and his father, an immigrant from Yugoslavia, were “communist sympathizers.” 

The soldier, Milo Radulovich, demanded a hearing by the Air Force. During the hearing, an attorney for the Air Force waved around a sealed manila envelope which he claimed contained evidence, but it was never opened, and the defense was never allowed to see what was in it. The Air Force stripped Radulovich of his commission.

Murrow found out about it, and he and his team investigated the case. Murrow had long wanted to talk about McCarthy’s crusade to cleanse America of those he thought were enemies and kept telling Americans they were traitors and enemies of America, but didn’t have something concrete to talk about until this case.

Murrow showed America the lies that were told by McCarthy. He showed the ways McCarthy abused his position, abused his authority, and even times where McCarthy’s rhetoric caused significant damage to people and the nation.

The response was McCarthy called Murrow a Communist and told his legion of supporters to attack him because he was an anti-American threat to the country. 

Murrow came on his show a week later and showed the country how McCarthy had lied in his appearance on TV the week before when he accused Murrow, and then highlighted how anyone who opposed McCarthy was verbally attacked and accused.

Back then, in the 1950s, that truth mattered to people. People started to see through McCarthy’s tactics and how he was using lies and misinformation to manipulate people to do his bidding without question. 

On the real life March 9, 1954 edition of Murrow’s program “See It Now,” he delivered a monologue which I think resonates as loud today as it did back then and it was also part of the movie. In that monologue, Murrow said:

The words Murrow shared on his program “See It Now” on March 9, 1954 regarding McCarthy I think resonate for discussion over much of our situation today:

We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember, always, that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men—not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.

This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy’s methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.

The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn’t create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it—and rather successfully. Cassius was right: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”

I don’t know if I’ll get to New York to see the Broadway version of Good Night and Good Luck. Things are just too busy around the ol’ newspaper bullpen right now for me to escape for a week. However, the principles of what’s in that show, the importance of not blindly following any leader who tells you to hate another group of people or who brands those who don’t agree with them as enemies of America, is something we can all practice in our lives every single day.