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your TV programs, See It Now, Harvest Of
Shame and even Person To Person. (Yes, I know,
you did celebrity interviews, too, and even
changed your name from the awkward Egburt
Roscoe Murrow to the more impressive Edward
R. Murrow.)
In elementary school, I even memorized one of
your “I Can Hear It Now” 78-rpm records that
crisply recapped recent history with all the
sounds that made it special. Your work shaped
my idea of what a journalist should be. Your guts
in taking on Joe McCarthy later showed me that
a reporter could stand up for truth.
You used to talk about “illuminating” issues,
not just reporting them.
Anyway, here we are in 2003. You have been
long gone, and I am trying to honor your memory
by pounding away at what’s happened to
media institutions that “back in the day” showed
such great promise. I don’t want to overdo the
“golden age” of TV bit, but clearly this profession
has gone downhill, as news became an
industry. Despite all the channels and choices,
there are few voices today as commanding as
yours. The only illumination these days in TV
WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?
A LETTER TO EDWARD R. MURROW
Dear Ed:
I got the idea of writing to you after visiting the Edward Murrow School of Communication out in the
wheatfields of Washington State. I had come to debate the coverage of the Iraq war with a group of
mainstream journalists, who surprised me by how they were willing to be candid outside their institutional
settings.
While I was out there I tried to commune with your spirit. You have never died for me because it
was your work that got me into the media racket in the first place. It was as a kid that I was awed by
257
studios comes from the light bulbs.
When I was at your old school library, I dipped
into the archives and discovered a set of letters
you wrote in lavish penmanship to a girl named
Hermine Duthie who you were enticing but not
committing to. You seemed to love her physical
attentiveness but were keeping her at a distance
with exaggerated tales of perpetual busyness.
That gave me the sense that even a media icon
could be a real and flawed person like the rest of
us.
I would have loved to get your reaction to the
way the Iraq war was covered. Many remember
you, Ed, as the best dressed daddy of all war correspondents
covering what was then the mother
of all bombings, the blitz in London. You were
the quintessential war reporter we all looked up
to, standing there in well-tailored suits, cool
under fire, microphone in hand, painting visual
pictures with sound.
“This is London,” was your signature. Memorable
language reportedly dictated to a secretary,
but rarely written down, was your method.
You learned how to speak conversationally in