In the movie “Good Night and Good Luck” television journalist Edward R. Murrow makes an appeal to the Radio News and Television News Directors Association to not squander the full potential of television news reporting. We discussed this time period briefly in class, as well as the effects of the JFK assasination on the television news media; and I found this movie to be very interesting because this was a time when television was in its infancy. The majority of the public didn’t use television for anything more than mild entertainment, but Edward R. Murrow and Joseph McCarthy begin to use the different news mediums, television included, to publicly battle with one another.
Television is where most people turn for news information. http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/42871_Cushion.pdf Even with the invention of the internet, and with how fast people can get all their information on a smartphone, the majority of news is conveyed through television screens. Through the admonitions of Edward R. Murrow, and his experiences working for CBS, today we have news that’s fair and shows both sides of an argument. One of my favorite parts in particular was when Edward Murrow is getting chastised for wanting to run a story that shows an unpopular opinion. However, Murrow responds by saying that they’ve run plenty of coverage on one side of the argument and it’s about time that they showed the other.
Edward R. Murrow did a lot for broadcast journalism, and thanks to his very bold steps forward we were eventually able to unlock the full potential of broadcast journalism.
Embrace the Hornswoggle 
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