New York -
“I simply can’t accept that there are, on every story, two equal and logical sides to an argument,” said CBS newsman Ed Murrow at the height of McCarthyism in the 1950s. Murrow became one of my heroes as a journalism student years later. The "two sides to every story" concept that we were taught has too long been a crutch for giving lunatics, liars, criminals, and sociopaths far too much unmerited coverage.
The “Good Night, and Good Luck” production currently on Broadway and starring George Clooney is, like the 2005 movie, hagiography. It is well-deserved hero worship, nonetheless. The courage of Murrow, producer Fred Friendly, and their team is almost impossible to find in mass media these days as news operations have been absorbed Borg-like into monetizing media and entertainment conglomerates. Hello Jeff Bezos and the late Washington Post. There’s simply no appetite among the finance bros for the courage needed to counter today’s White House and Congress who make Joe McCarthy look like small potatoes. This is ironic too, since McCarthy actually did look like a small potato.
Just ask Wendy McMahon about the state of corporate mass media these days. She resigned last week as CBS News President. CBS owner Paramount continues to kowtow and capitulate to the unreasonable, unlawful demands of the U.S. President, and this was too much for McMahon who earned a solid reputation defending the newsroom. This comes one month after CBS "60 Minutes" Executive Producer Bill Owens resigned for similar reasons, citing a loss of journalistic independence and control at the hands of craven corporate interests.
In speaking truth to power and exposing vile corruption and hypocrisy, there are not two “equal and logical” sides to a story. Murrow was and remains absolutely correct. Enough with this binary, left vs. right, blue vs. red simplistic garbage. If there are two sides to what's happening in the U.S. today, it’s right vs. wrong. For the moment, "wrong” - morally, ethically, and legally - has an upper hand.
We’re not likely to benefit from new generations of Murrows and Friendlys in today’s corporatized, entertainment and profit-driven mass media. Sadly, those days are long gone. New heroes will emerge, however, from independent journalism, the arts, the law, and patriotic civic activism. The sooner, the better.
Ed Murrow image courtesy of PBS, a great national resource.