Good Night, and Good Luck

The movie Good Night and Good Luck depicted the courageous efforts of Edward R. Murrow in ending the witch hunt for Communists in America which was led by Senator Joseph McCarthy. Edward R. Murrow was a well known television journalist, who risked his livelihood in order to expose Senator Joseph McCarthy for what he was doing in America. Senator McCarthy was going through the ranks of the United States government and finding Communist spies. However, it was quite evident that McCarthy was taking the situation too far, accusing people of being Communists through lies and assumptions. Luckily for all of us, Edward R. Murrow was not afraid to publicly assert that McCarthy was lying through a television program. The nation realized that they had been duped by McCarthy, and he quickly fell from his comfortable position of accuser. Hopefully in the future, we will never have another instance of McCarthyism on our hands (although it is likely we will).

There is another aspect to this film that I feel is even more applicable in today's society. The following video shows the speech that Edward Murrow gives at the end of the movie.



This speech shows Edward R. Murrow's deep commitment to truth and information in mainstream media. He suggests some educational programing be weaved into the seemingly endless stream of entertainment programming. He states that he feels people would not ignore this program, but embrace it and the country as a whole would benefit from it. If he had lived to see what media has become today, I think Mr. Murrow would be appalled. With constant access to information on the internet, people merely look up what they need, when they need it and then forget about it. Otherwise, in my experience, most people do not care about truly deepening their understanding of major issues in society. Even if Mr. Murrow's idea was implemented today, I doubt it would reach very many people. People have hundreds of television stations with digital cable, satellite television and other common services, those who had no desire to listen could just change the channel or head over to their computer to obtain some meaningless entertainment. In my opinion, those who are interested enough to continue watching are the kind of people who would have researched information on their own, and while they will appreciate the program, they are not the ones who need to be watching it. I like his idea, I just worry that Americans have become too complacent. They do not want to hear about the fundamental issues that are effecting society, and I do not think that even Mr. Murrow's plan will force people to care.