Feds Aided Murrow Crusade

In a recent The New Yorker piece, Nicholas Lemann makes an interesting argument about crusading journalist Edward R. Murrow, and the image portrayed of him in the Oscar-nominated movie Good Night and Good Luck:

The structure that encouraged Murrow, uncomfortable as it may be to admit, was federal regulation of broadcasting. CBS, in Murrow’s heyday, felt that its prosperity, even its survival, depended on demonstrating to Washington its deep commitment to public affairs. The price of not doing so could be regulation, breakup, the loss of a part of the spectrum, or license revocation. Those dire possibilities would cause a corporation to err on the side of too much “See It Now” and “CBS Reports.” In parts of the speech [to a broadcasters’ trade-association convention in 1958] which aren’t in the movie, Murrow made it clear that the main pressure on broadcasting to do what he considered the right thing came from the F.C.C. The idea that, in taking on McCarthy, Murrow was “standing up to government” greatly oversimplifies the issue.

Thanks to Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine for the link. Here's his take on the story.