The Murrow Legend as Metaphor: The Creation, Appropriation, and Usefulness of Edward R. Murrow s Life Story

Transcription

1 The Murrow Legend as Metaphor: The Creation, Appropriation, and Usefulness of Edward R. Murrow s Life Story Gary Edgerton Edward R. Murrow Revisited This...is London. I m standing again tonight on a rooftop looking out over London, feeling rather large and lonesome. (Edward R. Murrow from a CBS radio broadcast during the 1940 Battle of Britain) Celebrations abounded throughout the United Kingdom on September 15, 1990 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of Britain. On June 18, 1940, Winston Churchill had challenged the British people to make the impending conflict their finest hour, and they responded by repelling a fourmonth onslaught by the German Luftwaffe which resulted in Hitler indefinitely postponing his plans to invade the embattled island. In America, the memory of the Battle of Britain is inextricably linked with the image of Edward R. Murrow relaying his hard-boiled commentaries back to the United States from a blacked-out London during his frequent rooftop vigils. His entire life story, in fact, is a vivid example of contemporary legendmaking in an era when heroes in the classical sense have become anachronisms and have supposedly outlived their purposes. The rigors of modern historiography seemingly guard against the presentday creation of such fanciful narrative facsimiles as legends when recasting the actions of real people in specific historical events. The case of Edward R. Murrow does resemble the traditional legenda formula which dates back to Roman times, however, meaning literally things to be read in reference to stories about Christian saints that were once circulated amongst the faithful for reasons of admiration, emulation, and moral uplift. Murrow, the newsman, may represent more earthbound aspirations than did the virtuous paragons of centuries ago; nevertheless, the Murrow legend and its hero personify the shared values of both the people who authored this historical rendition, as well as we, the readers, who repeatedly take part in its telling and retelling. Edward R. Murrow is arguably the figure most written about and referred to in the history of American broadcasting. In terms of sheer volume, scholarship on Murrow shares center stage in the history of radio and television in the United States with writing about some of broadcasting s key technologists and industrialists-such as Marconi, Sarnoff, and Paley. Murrow s place is of a different kind however; his elevation to founding father status within the cultural dialogue that has become the history of American broadcasting results from a much different impulse than do the stories that have been erected around the inventors and entrepreneurs. He is not merely one of the first, nor the most powerful, nor the most innovative, though he shares some of these qualities with the other elders of the media. He is a standard bearer of another sort-a moral barometer-where the very mentioning of Edward R. Murrow and his tradition typically signals that the respective media critics and historians are about to address the ethos of the broadcasting industry by the way they have fashioned Murrow s historical portrayal. The TV critic John Crosby once equated Murrow to that symbol of Athenian democracy, Pericles, while longtime associate Fred Friendly has called his former partner and colleague the Polaris, the true North Star (Crosby 8; Friendly, Edward R. Murrow s Legacy and Today s Media 19). Probably the most representative metaphor, however, dates back to the mid-1950s and asserts that Murrow is the patron saint of American broadcasting. The originator of this frequently utilized beatifier is no longer known, although all three of Murrow s most thorough biographers, Alexander Kendrick, Ann Sperber, and Joseph Persico, mention that a good-natured backlash among his colleagues resulted from this swirl of hero worship in the formation of the We Don t Think Murrow Is God Club at CBS News in 1957 (Kendrick 421; Sperber 515; Persico 282). 75

2 76 In the aftermath of the March 9, 1954, See It Now broadcast on Senator Joe McCarthy, the descriptions of Edward R. Murrow and his tradition quickly began to transcend the more secular cast that appeared in response to his championing of democratic action and principles in Britain during the London blitz. In his review of the now legendary McCarthy program, New York Times s TV critic Jack Gould reflected an ongoing canonization when he wrote that last week may be remembered as the week that broadcasting recaptured its soul (Gould 2). Since the 1950s, both popular and academic treatments of Murrow have blanketed this broadcaster s image in a number of recurring and interlocking ideals, such as integrity, honesty, truth, wisdom, courage, journalistic excellence, and professional conscience. Murrow has indeed become idealized to project a meaning that is larger than life. What is implied by this idealized version of Murrow? What needs are addressed, and conditions fulfilled in constructing a patron saint for the electronic media? The historical Edward R. Murrow was doubtlessly an important force in the growth and evolution of broadcasting in America; no thorough chronicle of electronic news could possibly ignore his role and contributions as a seminal figure. Still, why has Murrow been elevated to a kind of remembered sainthood in the dozens of books and essays that presently compose the existing historical discourse about this newsman and his tradition? As media historian Daniel Leab has stated in his reassessment of the See It Now series: Most commentary about Murrow verges on hagiography, and I could find little serious writing about him or his efforts that did not incline towards the adulatory (Leab 5). Popular renditions of the Murrow story also reveal the tendency toward hagiography. Murrow s career has been examined in newspapers and magazines, and covered on radio and television. This attention continues as HBO made him the subject of a 1986 made-for-pay-tv movie, while PBS reviewed his professional accomplishments in a two-part installment of its American Masters series in the summer of A pair of the more authoritative works on Murrow arrived shortly after his death in 1965 from two of his closest friends and professional associates. These books by Fred Friendly (Due To Circumstances Beyond Our Control...) and Alexander Kendrick (Prime Time) have unquestionably been the most influential secondary sources affecting the subsequent historical reporting about Murrow during the past two decades. Beginning with the last two parts of Journal of American Culture Erik Barnouw s pioneering broadcast trilogy (The Golden Web; The Image Empire) and continuing through the better journalistic (Gates; Halberstam; Metz; Sperber; Persico) and academic accounts of Murrow s life and career, or episodes therein (Baughman, See It Now and Television s Golden Age, ; Emery and Emery; MacDonald, Television and the Red Menace; Rudner, Born to a New Craft ; Smith; Stephens; Sterling and Kittross; Winfield and DeFleur), there is an interpretive similarity that either harkens back to Friendly and Kendrick s original work, or deviates only slightly from the way these authors fundamentally framed the material. These subsequent books and articles are merely a fraction of what exists in the historical discourse about Murrow and the Murrow tradition. A generation of students who have earned degrees in communication, journalism, or radio-televisionfilm since Murrow s death have been initiated to the newsman s legend through a bevy of broadcasting and mass media textbooks. The name Edward R. Murrow also connotes a position of eminence for many broadcast journalists working in the United States today, whether or not they are old enough to have watched or listened to him firsthand. Turner Broadcasting promoted the Cable News Network (CNN) during the 1980s in Broadcasting and other trade publications with a picture of Murrow and the caption, We re following in some famous footsteps. The highest compliment Time accorded CNN when praising its coverage of the bombing of Baghdad at the outset of the Gulf War was by calling the reports...a throwback to Edward R. Murrow s famous World War I1 CBS radio broadcasts (Tifft). These examples from academe, the media industry, and the broadcast journalist profession, suggest that the memory of Murrow is called upon for a wide variety of reasons. Although all are generally uniform and hagiographical, each is also employed by distinct interest groups for their own purposes. Who composes this network of practicing journalists, authors, historians, broadcasters, and business executives who have mediated the Murrow discourse? What is their relationship to the newsman, and how do their different institutional positions and priorities affect how they order and promote the Murrow story? And how does the Murrow legend articulate the warring impulses of public interest and profit which drive the electronic news business in America today? In proposing these questions my overall intent is to re-examine the creation of the Murrow discourse and the meanings that reside within its

3 The Murrow Legend as Metaphor contours. This discourse is an idealized version of Murrow s life story invented by special interests in response to actual events and their perceived significance. Edward R. Murrow, in this sense, is a reified version of the historical man, the patron saint of broadcasting who embodies commonly held attitudes that have as much to do with certain assumptions that we harbor as they have to do with Murrow himself. The paradox of this (as well as any) act of reification is that we are typically unaware of how we are reflected in what we reify. My goal, then, is to first review the assemblage of the Murrow discourse, next disclose the meaning of the heroic model which resides within its ideological framework; and finally specify the notions that we are enunciating about our moral preoccupations, our aspirations of democratic liberalism, and the role of the electronic news media in American society through the way we have recirculated the Murrow legend amongst ourselves over the past two generations. Composing the Murrow Discourse They [Murrow and See It Now] were on the side of history, perhaps of the angels. (Kendrick 3) The first vestiges of any historical discourse typically take the form of popular storytelling, and the existing rendition of Edward R. Murrow s life and career is no exception to this general rule. Historical storytelling is an act of communication. The Murrow historians are narrators who pick, choose, and shape the chronological episodes of Edward R. Murrow s lifetime into identifiable plot structures which highlight some events, ideas, beliefs, and practices, while suppressing others. Kendrick, Friendly, Barnouw, Sperber, Persico and most of the other Murrow historians have produced a surprisingly contiguous dialogue which essentially invents a classical hero for broadcasting at a point in the 20th-century when Americans are more inclined to reject notions of traditional heroism and embrace anti-heroes. These histories offer a similar stream of people, places, dates, and anecdotes which together mask a deeper level of order and significance. Certainly an oral tradition began among Murrow s colleagues about the newsman s past exploits and standards while he was still alive. It is well-known that Murrow hired a generation of electronic journalists at CBS for whom he set the example as their charismatic leader. In 1977, more than a decade after Murrow s death, Dan Rather wrote in his autobiography that it was astonishing how often his [Murrow] name and work came up. 77 To somebody outside CBS it is probably hard to believe... Time and again I heard someone say, Ed wouldn t have done it that way (Rather with Herskowitz 332). The degree of cult-like intensity which surrounded the memory of Murrow for his former associates and proteges at the network news division is evident in an anecdote from Ann Sperber s biography. She recounts that when CBS moved from its old, aging Manhattan headquarters on Madison Avenue to Black Rock on 52nd Street in 1963, Joseph Wershba took down the door on 17 that still read Mr. Murrow and brought the relic home (Sperber 697). The first written accounts of Edward R. Murrow beyond the journalistic sphere of television criticism or personality sketches were histories produced by CBS associates and friends. Alexander Kendrick, who was hired by Murrow in the 1940s, published his best-selling, Prime-Time, in In his acknowledgments, Kendrick highlights the privileged position of his narration by noting that his documentation is as much biological as bibliographical (Kendrick 517). A year earlier, Murrow s partner on See It Now and other series, Fred W. Friendly, provided another insider s view of Murrow in Due To Circumstances Beyond Our Control.... Friendly has been one of the most enthusiastic champions of the Murrow tradition, and in his introduction, he explains that Murrow...is as much a part of this book as its author (Friendly xxiii). For more than half of the remaining text, Friendly strikes the pose of the historian as apologist by explaining in detail the trials and tribulations he and Murrow endured while battling the CBS hierarchy over their coverage of controversial topics on See it Now and CBS Reports. In 1967, Edward Bliss, another one of Murrow s inner circle, edited a collection of Murrow s more memorable broadcasts dating from 1938 through 1961 in a compilation called In Search of Light. Both Bliss and Friendly later entered academe after their careers at CBS, and continued publishing about Murrow and his tradition (Friendly, Edward R. Murrow s Legacy and Today s Media ; Bliss, Remembering Edward R. Murrow, The Meaning of Murrow, Battle Hymns and Autumn Wonders ). A wealth of primary source material involving the famous newsman dating from 1941 to the present has also been marketed toward the general public in the form of audio recordings (e.g., the three volume series I Can Hear It Now [Columbia Masterworks]; the two volume series Edward R. Murrow: A Reporter Remembers [Columbia Masterworks]; Edward R. Murrow:

4 78 Journal of American Culture Fig. 1. Edward R. Murrow is remembered today as the patron saint of American broadcasting. (Courtesy of the Murrow Center, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University)

5 The Murrow Legend as Metaphor 79 Fig. 2. Murrow was one of many heroes to emerge from World War 11, but he became the eminent symbol for broadcasting. (Courtesy of the Murrow Center, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University)

6 80 Journal of American Culture Fig. 3. Murrow s tenacity in living up to certain ethical and professional ideals played an intregal part in spawning his legend. (Courtesy of the Murrow Center, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University)

7 The Murrow Legend as Metaphor 81 Fig. 4. Murrow s strongest critics began referring to him more and more as the voice of doom by (Courtesy of the Murrow Center, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University)

8 Journal of American Culture

9 The Murrow Legend as Metaphor 83

10 84 Journal of American Culture Fig. 7. Edward R. Murrow functions today as the electronic media culture s hero for self-justification. (Courtesy of the Murrow Center, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts Unviersity)

11 The Murrow Legend as Metaphor Reporting Live [Bantam Audio]; etc.), videotapes (e.g., selected episodes of See It Now and Person to Person [Video Yesteryear]; etc.), and anthologies composed of original scripts (Murrow; Murrow and Friendly). The existence of these popular items not only speaks to this newsman s long-standing celebrity status, but in turn contributes to the volume of artifacts and folklore that affects the culture s recollections, image, and resulting opinion of Murrow. The initial academic publications about Murrow were undertaken by Erik Barnouw in his three-volume history of broadcasting in the United States. These widely read and referenced works derive most of their agenda, evidence, and shared interpretations of Murrow from aforementioned sources written by Murrow s former colleagues. For instance, the subchapter that addresses See It Now and the Murrow-McCarthy confrontation entitled, The Fault, Dear Brutus... in The Image Empire (Barnouw 46-56), and which was later reprised as The Murrow Moment in Tube of Plenty (Barnmw ), is largely a reconstruction of corresponding parts from Due to Circumstances Beyond Our Control... and Prime Time: The Life of Edward R. Murrow with the following conclusion: The Murrow documentaries helped to make television an indispensable medium. Few people now dared to be without a television set (Frienciiy xi-98; Kendrick 35-71). Barnouw is, of course, careful to employ footnotes and citations, although he clearly informs the reader of his preferences by alluding to Friendly as eloquent and Kendrick as indispensable in Tube of Plenty s Biographical Notes (Barnouw 489). Barnouw, in turn, has influenced a whole generation of fellow researchers and their students. His trilogy is still the most comprehensive and extensively used academic source concerning the history of radio and television in America. A perusal of the footnote and bibliographical sections in subsequent books, textbooks, and journal articles that treat Murrow and his career uncovers the debt these authors owe not only to Erik Barnouw, but also to Alexander Kendrick and Fred Friendly (e.g., Emery and Emery ; MacDonald, Don t Touch That Dial! ; Persico ; Sperber 733, 770; Stephens ; Winfield and DeFleur, ; etc.). Considering that the subsequent historical dialogue about Murrow has always drawn heavily on the original agenda, facts, opinions, and plotlines established by those closest and most sympathetic to this newsman, it is little wonder that Murrow holds a position of apotheosis in the memory of most Americans who know his name. Within any broad, narrative discourse, not all story episodes are accorded equal importance. The Murrow discourse, for instance, centers on three, now legendary events, no matter how much detail individual authors might use to either retell these bits of broadcasting lore or fill in the gaps among their appearances within the historical plotlines: (1) Murrow s radio reporting during the London blitz (Murrow acts heroically and invents a journalistic tradition); (2) the McCarthy broadcast (the broadcaster as a public servant risks all and wins); and (3) his 1958 RTNDA [Radio and Television News Directors Association] speech which attacked the state of television (the broadcaster as public servant risks all and is slowly martyred). A more augmented cultural dialogue which shares similar philosophical and ideological bearings is created when Alexander Kendrick, Ann Sperber, and Joseph Persico spend hundreds of pages building their plot structures around these three strategically placed climaxes, or when other historians of broadcasting concentrate the energies of their historical narratives on the legendary London Blitz (Barnouw The Golden Web; Bilski; Culbert, News for Everyman; This is London ; Kuralt; Manchester; Metz; Paley; Rudner, The Heart and the Eye ; Born to a New Craft ; Smith; Sterling and Kittross; Stephens; Stott; Woolley); or the McCarthy Broadcast (Barnouw, The Zmage Empire, Documentary, Tube of Plenty; Baughman, See It Now and Television s Golden Age, ; Bayley; Bilaski; Bluem; Emery and Emery; Friendly, Due to Circumstances Beyond Our Control...; Gates; Kuralt; Leab; Leonard; Lichello; MacDonald, Don t Touch That Dial!, Television and the Red Menace; Manchester; Matusow; Merron; Metz; Miller; Murray; Paley; Rudner, The Heart and the Eye ; Stephens; Sterling and Kittross; Wershba; Yaeger); or the RTNDA speech and the resulting Murrow legacy (Baughman, The National Purpose and the Newest Medium ; Bliss, The Meaning of Murrow ; Friendly, Edward R. Murrow s Legacy and Today s Media ; Gates; Lichello; Murrow s Indictment of Broadcasting, ; Winfield and DeFleur). The three most comprehensive chroniclers of Murrow-Alexander Kendrick, Ann Sperber, and Joseph Persico-all wrote sweeping and epic biographies of their subject. Each of these narratives proceeds chronologically from forebearers to final eulogies, and follows the logic of 19th-century tragedy where the existence of the tragic flaw shifts from inside the classical hero, or away from some metaphoric fall from grace, to the infirmity 85

12 86 present in a weak and imperfect human institution: Here the protagonist (Murrow, the self-made man) is sacrificed to the avarice and power of a social evil (American big businesdthe broadcasting industry/the CBS board of directors) for the transcendental expression of some higher purpose or ideal (the inherent goodness of the Murrow tradition). At first glance, the inevitable professional tragedy of Murrow s progressive enervation at CBS after the 1958 RTNDA speech where he excoriated the broadcasting industry for being fat, comfortable and complacent and television for being used to detract, delude, amuse and insulate us (Sperber xvii; Persico 434) may appear as a rupture in the inveterate logic of Protestant America s myth of the successful, self-made man. The history of Murrow belongs to a more Puritanical version of this stereotype, however, which predates the 20thcentury s continued dissolution of the more theological aspects of this worldview. As popular culturalist Madonna Marsdon explains: For the Puritans, success was a spiritual matter. Material success was only an accident of a much larger goal, and the pursuit of virtue was much more important than the pursuit of the dollar (Marsden 70). Kendrick, Sperber, and Persico spin similar tales without irony or ambiguity; unlike the modern world where Murrow lived, the endings in these hermetically constructed universes are never in doubt. This judgment does not ignore the criticisms lodged against Murrow in his most recent biographies: Sperber and Persico do document his apparently infrequent philandering, his moodiness and occasional preening, and several, minor professional faux pas. In the final analysis, however, these two authors merely employ Murrow s mistakes and indiscretions as a way of making their versions of Murrow s canonization more palatable when faced with the increased cynicism of our present point-of-view. Murrow s classically heroic depiction remains the norm in all accounts, since the more encompassing factors of society, culture, industry, and philosophy are seldom used to contextualize and define the broadcaster s personality and actions. Murrow is perfectly cast as a hero throughout the existing Murrow discourse. As with any closed, narrative formula, the act of narrating and reading Murrow s history as legend becomes a cultural ritual in and of itself. History in this form functions in a number of profound ways: the renewable process of writing and reading about one of our own links together Murrow s devotees in the professional realm and in academe; it affirms the accepted Journal of American Culture standards and traditional values of the electronic media culture as they are presently understood; and it commemorates one of broadcasting s genuinely important figures. Seeing Our Reflection in Murrow s Heroic Model Mutato nomine de te fabula narratur/with the name changed, the story applies to you. (Horace from his Satires, circa 35 B.C.) The present literature on contemporary heromaking typically cites three criteria which are necessary for the raising up of any genus of hero: The candidate must be exceptionally talented; embody qualities and virtues that the society admires; and most importantly, be brought to the attention of the public for having put those qualities and virtues to work for the benefit of the community, state, nation, or humanity at large (Browne and Fishwick). In this way, what qualities and virtues in the Murrow figure have made this newsman meaningful to three generations of Americans? David Halberstam has observed that Murrow was one of those rare legendary figures who was as good as his myth (Halberstam 38). Murrow was apparently driven by the democratic precepts of modern liberalism and the more embracing Weltanschauung of the American Protestant tradition. (Murrow s brother, Dewey, once described the intense religious and moral tutelage of their parents: they branded us with their own consciences (Kendrick 86). Murrow s imagination and obsession with these social and cultural recipes impelled him to integrate these institutional guidelines into his own personality to such an extensive degree that he became the virtual fulfillment of his industry s public service aspirations-the patron saint of American broadcasting. Murrow, at least unconsciously, participated in and encouraged his own objectification by relentlessly driving himself to fulfill his profession s ideal of accepted excellence. This process of idealization was apparently well underway as early as 1941 when Murrow was recognized at a dinner held exclusively in his honor at New York s Waldorf-Astoria. This occasion, which was staged In Honor of a Man and an Ideal, must have been a particularly heady experience for the 33-year-old newscaster. During the event, both Archibald MacLeish, the then Librarian of Congress, and William S. Paley, the President of CBS, memorialized the young broadcaster in words that linked Murrow s role as an honest and fearless reporter [to] the principle of the first freedom, the freedom of speech and expression everywhere in the world (MacLeish 3).

13 The Murrow Legend as Metaphor These speeches did not start the Murrow legend and tradition, which had been born between newsman and America s listening public two years before. The sentiments expressed by MacLeish and Paley do reflect, however, the reification process that was already fusing this man and an ideal into a non-human or possibly suprahuman construct for many in the United States and Britain (Berger and Luckmann 89). Original recordings of Murrow s early broadcasts make it abundantly clear why his rich, full, and expressive voice had such a direct and dramatic impact on his listenership. In words evocative of America s original founding fathers, Murrow frequently used the airwaves to revivify and popularize many of the democratic ideals that resulted from a broader liberal discourse in England, France, and the United States, such as free speech, citizen participation, the pursuit of truth, and the sanctification of individual liberties and rights. Resurrecting these values and virtues for a mass audience of true believers during the London blitz was high drama as the impending threat of Nazi bombs was ever present in the background. Murrow s broadcast persona was thus established, embodying the political traditions of the Western democracies, and offering the public a heroic model on which to focus their energies. Murrow, of course, was only one of the many heroes to emerge from World War 11, but he became the eminent symbol for broadcasting. Murrow s dark, sober, and humorless countenance reflected a nation gearing itself up to face down Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo. His urgent and inspirational style of presentation fit the life-and-death psychological milieu of a world war, as it was later appropriate for the McCarthy crisis. By 1958, though, the mass audience and the television industry were less inclined to listen to yet another of his ethical lambastes, especially since his RTNDA speech was directed at them and their shortcomings. Towards the end of the 1950s, a number of Murrow s strongest critics began referring to him more and more as the voice of doom. This gibe, like any nickname or caricature, exaggerates and reveals prominent features or qualities of the person it portrays. The Murrow persona is likewise a congealed and symbolic version of the newscaster. Like the relationship between any radio or television star and his or her audience, listening to or watching Murrow functions as a kind of collective Rorschach test where the public singles out and reifies personality traits while suppressing others. 87 The meaning of Murrow and his tradition are indelibly rooted in the dreams of a generation that came of age during the Second World War. As television critic Robert Lewis Shayon perceptively noted on the day of Ed Murrow s funeral: It seemed as though the generation burying Murrow were burying its hopes of that younger time (Sperber 704). The great expectations and intensity that Americans brought home from their World War I1 experiences were forever etched on Murrow s face; so was the eventual disillusionment when a better world did not ensue, and individual freedoms were threatened and subverted at home during the Red Scare. The power of Murrow s elongated face and solemn demeanor grew in ennobled permanence throughout the 1950s. In remembering Murrow, or watching films or videotapes of his programs, or even reflecting on the dozens of photographs that remain of the broadcaster, one sees an eerie sameness to the Murrow presence. He is almost always sitting in shadows, dressed formally in a conservative suit, and peering skeptically from behind his ubiquitous cigarette as if transfixed on some indeterminate worry. His clothes and posture bespeak sophistication and experience, while his sense of sadness and irony discloses feelings of incertitude and disillusionment. In the context of television s lightness, action, and inveterate presentism, Murrow projects a presence ever darker, more trapped, and almost paralyzed with awareness. The meaning of Murrow is partly a reminder of the world s imperfections. His call to action was embraced during World War 11; acknowledged and acted upon during the McCarthy era, but rejected as the 1950s came to an end. Murrow reveled in his role as broadcasting s Jeremiah, numbed by his scrupulous sense of morality, though still eloquently able to warn Americans about the dangers of Hitler, McCarthy, and the excesses of the profit motive in television. The tragedy of Murrow is implicit in his apparent need to ascribe higher motives to his own profession. His searing gaze finally came to rest on the industry where he worked. As the business of TV grew astronomically during the 1950s, Murrow s priorities fell progressively out of step. For the first time in his career, Murrow s uncompromising standards were no longer welcome at CBS; the source of his genius as a newsman had become his greatest liability with the passing of time. Today in the lobby of CBS there is a small plaque which contains the image of Murrow and the inscription: He set standards of excellence that remain unsurpassed. The seeming paradox between Murrow s life and the way he is

14 88 subsequently remembered is that the industry that finally had no place for the man still holds Murrow up as one of its own. This institutional ambivalence, however, must be seen as a crucial part of Murrow s heroic meaning. The fundamental purpose of any legend is the bestowal of moral instruction. Positive episodes, such as Murrow s transcendence during the London blitz and in the McCarthy incident, impart lessons about virtuous behavior and setting standards of skill and professionalism. In contrast, negative episodes, such as Murrow s fate after delivering his RTNDA speech, warn us of the precariousness of going too far in pursuing the moral high ground at the networks. The Murrow discourse, therefore, embodies both the best and the most profane intentions in our system of electronic media. It does provide a heroic representation for the highest aspirations of an industry, a profession, and an academic discipline. At the same time, Murrow s tragic demise also informs us by implication that there are palpable limits placed on imitating the heroic example of the man by the always more compelling quest for profit in the business of American broadcasting and cable. The Usefulness of the Murrow Legend and Its Hero It s complicated, being an American, Having the money and the bad conscience, both at the same time. (Louis Simpson from On the Lawn at the Villa, Selected Poems, 1965) The legendary aspect of Murrow s life story has the cumulative effect of transforming the telling and retelling into a kind of ritual which binds those together who partake in the storytelling process from the spheres of industry, the electronic news profession, academe, and the admiring audience from American mass society. Every generation takes what it needs from past events, and we are essentially imagining and discovering ourselves in the way we compose our histories. Legend-making is the language of moral self-definition, and Murrow is the heroic model on which his devotees have chosen to focus an ideological mixture of domestic Protestanism, democratic liberalism, and codes of newsgathering ethics and standards that already existed for the print media well before the development of radio news in the 1930s. In a deep and heartfelt sense, Murrow is the electronic media s hero for self-justification. Commemorating a patron saint of American broadcasting is also an act of testimony to the tenets of fairness, commitment, conscience, courage, and social responsibility which compose the Murrow Journal of American Culture tradition for broadcast journalism. The hero of the Murrow discourse is an exaggerated facsimile of the historical man who embodies qualities and virtues that give purpose to the founding, the institutionalizing, and the present-day gathering, teaching, and consuming of electronic news. The very fact that Murrow s life story is grounded on the irreconcilable conflict between the impulses of profit seeking and public interest is the reason why it has been so evocative for so long. The Murrow discourse provides us with both a goal and a cautionary note. The aura represents the putting of ideals before material gain. The authors of his discourse also make us stop and think, however, by involuntarily imbuing his strivings with an air of tragic inevitability. In this way, Murrow s martyred persona functions as a subtle warning to those who would follow his example. The most remarkable feature of the Murrow legend is that it flourished so quickly, springing up even as Edward R. Murrow was still alive. In simpler, easier known, and more predictable eras, the process of creating legends typically took at least several generations, sometimes even centuries. In contrast, elements of the Murrow discourse actually began falling into place just a mere half-century ago as Murrow himself and his colleagues began informally fashioning and personalizing an idealized standard for broadcast journalism in the twenty years succeeding his first CBS radio reports. This relatively small cadre of newsmen together mediated a cultural myth of their own devising, but always within the context of a massive corporation and aided by the scope of powerful mass media technology. The historical Murrow actually lost much of his status as key spokesperson for his emerging legend when he left the institutional surroundings of CBS for the U.S.I.A. in February 1961; therupture between the historical Murrow and the Murrow discourse was further exacerbated in March 1961 when he attempted to suppress the BBC broadcast of his own CBS Refiort s Harvest of Shame (1960) because he believed its muckraking about the plight of migrant workers was designed for domestic audiences rather than overseas viewers, and was simply not conducive to the aims of the U.S.I.A. His subsequent death in 1965 finally resolved any lingering contradictions that might have existed between the man and the hagiographical model within the Murrow discourse by further repressing the historical figure from what had now become an idealized construction with a life all its own.

15 The Murrow Legend as Metaphor The discursive formation surrounding Murrow only broadened over time. Murrow became a figure that CBS consciously promoted as early as World War I1 as symbolic proof that the network represented the best in broadcast journalism; as Murrow and his clique of fellow newsmen continued their professional growth into television in the 1950s, the Murrow tradition became emblematic of the quintessential electronic news organization in the business. The most confining dimension about the discourse was its socioeconomic pedigree: Murrow s relative independence at the network progressively dwindled as CBS grew to corporate proportions throughout the 1950s, as is evident by the problems and eventual cancellation of See It Now in 1958, and the rapid enervation of the newsman at CBS after this point. The historical Murrow was good for neither ratings nor sponsor relations in the role of investigative journalist that he most wanted to play. The most striking irony of the Murrow discourse is that it eventually excluded the historical man himself when his hard-hitting expressions of explorative journalism on See It Now caused discomfort and embarrassment to his employer, CBS, and his corporate sponsor, Alcoa. When push came to shove, the evolving industrial context of broadcasting that had always employed, once nourished, and finally blunted Murrow s instincts toward public debate and televised controversy, asserted its governing ownership over the Murrow tradition. After 1960, the Murrow image became institutionalized on plaques and professional awards, in published memorials (e.g., Bliss, Remembering Edward R. Murrow ; Friendly, Edward R. Murrow s Legacy and Today s Media ; Kuraul t; Wershba; etc.), and in many compilation documentaries, including an hour-long telecast entitled, This Is Edward R. Murrow (1975), which was produced as a tribute by his colleagues at CBS News after his death. As many of Murrow s contemporaries eventually retired or left the news organization, and some such as Kendrick and Friendly translated the tradition, legacy, and legend of Murrow into book form, the power of the Murrow discourse supported contradictory aims at CBS, Incorporated and its news division. Dan Rather echoed Edward R. Murrow when he asked in his 1987 editorial, Do the owners and officers of the new CBS see news as a trust or only as a business venture? (Rather). The point, of course, is that commercial television news functions simultaneously as an information service and a money-making proposition. When bottom-line financial considerations need to take 89 precedence over concerns of public interest, however, CBS and the rest of network journalism are never reluctant to disguise their position by once again reaffirming their allegiance to the Munow tradition. Is the existing Murrow discourse then nothing but grist for the public relations mill? Such a blanket condemnation would be too facile and superficial, and would ignore the daily accomplishments of network journalism. For instance, there are clear benefits when skilled newscasters, such as ABC s Ted Koppel are influenced to an extent that he remembers by the time I was 9 years old, living in England, listening to this rich, deep baritone on BBC, I had already decided that this is what I wanted to be, a foreign correspondent...it was all based on this image of Murrow [emphasis added] (Unger). The memory of Murrow s exploits has doubtlessly inspired many newspeople in radio, television, and cable during the past two generations. The present legendary version of Murrow and his tradition is probably best understood as forming the allowable boundaries of agenda and controversy pursued by broadcast news; it is both an ideal and a dynamic construct that sometimes inspires action, other times brackets the possible, and vaguely limits how far electronic newsgathering can go. As with any discourse, the Murrow composite has so far served us as both a catalyst and a constraint. It is crucial to consider that an oral legend and tradition created by a small group of electronic journalists during the development of CBS News has long ago been usurped by the more complex and conflicting agencies of an industry and a profession, with the former strain of influence remaining the stronger force. Murrow and his legacy are now mediated by the uneasy confluence of socio-economic controls and the organizational mores and aspirations of broadcast journalism. For all intents and purposes, these vested interests circumscribe much of the perceived significance of Murrow, and thus confront present and future historians of broadcasting with a more subtle challenge than just retelling a story that is already in place. We should instead begin by broadening our frame-of-interest to include much more than the day-to-day occurrences of Murrow s life history. These episodes and the manner in which we arrange them are ultimately of great importance; however, we first need to recognize that the Murrow legend and its hero are most evocative from a figurative standpoint.

16 90 As with any discourse, the Murrow legend has both positive and negative features. In raising up a hero for self-justification, we, on one hand, celebrate a tradition and commemorate a model to be emulated from an industry s most respected moments. We must correspondingly acknowledge, though, that the Murrow discourse as it now exists also retains an element of denial. The Murrow legend, on some level, is clearly our means of congratulating ourselves for having produced our most admired citizen. We all benefit by relating ourselves to such a virtuous and accomplished personage, whether our point of reference within the discourse is institutional or informal, author or reader. This act of wishful identification, in turn, is both an ideal on which to aspire for the future and an excuse in the present for having made profit a higher priority than social responsibility in our current system of electronic news. In other words, the Murrow discourse also masks a deep-seated guilt within the aura of a hero who embodies our own socially constructed code of media ethics; it helps to obfuscate the inherent conflict that arises when we choose far too often to ignore this self-imposed tradition in favor of pursuing the more compelling and self-serving imperative of economic gain. In the final analysis, this denial s most powerful function is to conceal the expediency of our shorterterm ambitions behind the guise of longer-lasting principles and a hero s mystique. Until recently broadcasting history has largely been humanistic in the classical sense of exploring what individual figures have accomplished, rather than in the more self-reflexive spirit of re-examining the significance of what we have together selected and ignored from the wellspring of history, and the implications of how we have articulated these preferences. We, like Murrow, are ideological figures, and the nature of the discourse that we have produced collectively reflects our distinctive character and sympathies. The Murrow legend, accordingly, is the foremost metaphor that we have yet invented expressing our basic values and motives with respect to electronic news. Furthermore, this discourse holds the potential for continued importance in the future by providing us outlet for discussing any latent shifts priorities towards both the business and broadcast journalism in the years to come. Works Cited with an in our craft of Journal of American Culture Barnouw, E. The Golden Web: A History of Broadcasting in the United States, Vol. 2, ?. New York: Oxford, The Image Empire: A History of Broadcasting in the United States, Vol. 3, from 195?. New York: Oxford, Documentary: A History of the Non-Fiction Film. New York: Oxford, Tube of Plenty: The Evolution of American Television. New York: Oxford, Baughman, J.L. See It Now and Television s Golden Age, Journal ofpopular Culture, 15 (1981): The National Purpose and the Newest Medium: Liberal Critics of Television, Mid-America, 64 (1982): Bayley, E.R. Joe McCarthy and the Press. New York: Pantheon, Berger, P. and T. Luckmann. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York, Anchor, Bilski, T. A Descriptive Study: Edward R. Murrow s Contributions to Electronic Journalism. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University, Bleum, A.W. Documentary in American Television. New York: Hastings House, Bliss, E., Jr. (Ed.). In Search of Light: The Broadcasts of Edward R. Murrow, I9? New York: Alfred Knopf, Remembering Edward R. Murrow. Saturday Review, 31 May 1975: The Meaning of Murrow. Feedback, 25 (Winter 1983): Battle Hymns and Autumn Wonders: The Poetry of the Best in Broadcast Prose. Columbia Journalism Review, 18 (February 1985): Browne, R. and M. Fishwick (Eds.). The Hero in Transition. Bowling Green, OH: Popular Press, Crosby, J. It Was New and We Were Very Innocent. TV Guide, 22 September 1973: Culbert, D. News for Everyman: Radio and Foreign Affairs in Nineteen-Thirties America. Westport, CT: Greenwood, This is London: Edward R. Murrow, Radio News and American Aid to Britain. Journal of Pofiular Culture, 10 (1976): Emery, E. and M. Emery. The Press and America: An Interpretive History of the Mass Media. Fifth Edition. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Friendly, F. Due to Circumstances Beyond Our Control.... New York: Random House, Edward R. Murrow s Legacy and Today s Media. Educational Broadcasting Review, 5 (August 1971): Gates, G. Air Time: The Inside Story of CBS News. New York: Harper & Row, Could, J. TV and McCarthy. The New York Times, 14 March 1954: 2,11. Halberstam, D. The Powers That Be. New York: Knopf, 1979.

17 The Murrow Legend as Metaphor Kendrick, A. Prime Time: The Life of Edward R. Murrow. Boston: Little, Brown, Kuralt, C. Edward R. Murrow. North Carolina Historical Review, 48 (1971): Leab, D. See It Now: A Legend Reassessed. In J.E. O Connor (Ed.), American History /American Television: Interpreting the Video Past. New York: Ungar, 1983: Leonard, B. In the Storm of the Eye: A Lifetime at CBS. New York: Putnam, Lichello, R. Edward R. Murrow: Broadcaster of Courage. Charlotteville, NY: SamHar Press, MacDonald, J.F. Don t Touch That Dial!. Chicago: Nelson- Hall, Television and the Red Menace: The Video Road to Vietnam. New York: Praeger, MacLeish, A., W.S. Paley, and E.R. Murrow, In Honor of a Man and an Ideal: Three Talks on Freedom. New York: The Columbia Broadcasting System, Manchester, W. The Glory and the Dream: A Narrative History of America, New York: Bantam, Marsden, M. The American Myth of Success: Visions and Revisions. In C. Geist and J. Nachbar (Eds.), The Popular Culture Reader. Third Edition. Bowling Green, OH: Popular Press, 1983: Matusow, B. The Evening Stars: The Making of the Network News Anchor. New York: Anchor, Merron, J. Murrow on TV: See It Now, Person to Person, and the Making of a Masscult Personality. Journalism Monographs, 106 (1988). Metz, R. CBS: Reflections in a Bloodshot Eye. New York: Signet, Miller, A. The Night Ed Murrow Struck Back. Esquire, December 1983: Murrow, E.R. This is London. Simon & Schuster, Murrow, E.R. and F. Friendly (Eds.). See It Now. New York: Simon and Schuster, Murrow s Indictment of Broadcasting. Columbia Journalism Review (Summer 1965): Murray, M.D. See It Now vs. McCarthyism: Dimensions of Documentary Persuasion. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Missouri at Columbia, Paley, W.S. As It Happened: A Memoir. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Persico, J.E. Edward R. Murrow: An American Original. 91 New York: McGraw-Hill, Rather, D. with M. Herskowitz. The Camera Never Blinks. New York: William Morrow, Rather, D. From Murrow to Mediocrity? Baltimore Sun, 10 March 1987: 12. Rudner, L. The Heart and the Eye: Edward R. Murrow as Broadcast Journalist, Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Michigan State [Jniversity, Born to a New Craft, Journal of Popular Culture, 15 (1981): Smith, R.F. Edward R. Murrow: The War Years. Kalamazoo: Western Michigan University, Sperber, A. Murrow: His Life and Times. New York: Freundlich, Stephens, Mitchell. A History of News: From the Drum to the Satellite. New York: Penguin, Sterling, C. and J. Kittross. Stay Tuned: A Concise History of American Broadcasting. Second Edition. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Stott, W. Documentary Expression and Thirties America. New York: Oxford, Tifft, S. Far Ahead of the Pack: An Anxious World Listened in as CNN Covered the Bombardment of Baghdad Live, Time (International Edition), 28 January 1991: 47. Unger, A. Koppel Frets Over Network Standards. Baltimore Sun, 26 November 1987: 32G. Wershba, J. Murrow and McCarthy: See It Now. The New York Times, 128, Sec. 6, 4 March 1979: Winfield, B.H., and L.B. DeFleur. The Edward R. Murrow Heritage: Challenge for the Future. Ames: Iowa State UP, Woolley, T. A Rhetorical Study: The Radio Speaking of Edward R. Murrow. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Northwestern University, Yaeger, M. An Analysis of Edward R. Murrow s See it Now Television Program. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Iowa, Gary Edgerton is Chairperson of the Communication Department at Goucher College, Towson, MD. In he was Visiting Professor of American and Commonwealth Arts, University of Exeter, United Kingdom.

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