 Edward R. Murrow on the set of See It Now, ca. 1953. Photo courtesy WSU. Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections.
MH: You wrote in your afterword that Edward R. Murrow's
like could really never happen again, because he definitely was a
man of his day. If I were a young journalist, and I wanted to, in a
way, chronicle news, and have high standards and so forth and
wanted to go into broadcast journalism, where would you think would
be the best way to go, public radio?
BE: Absolutely, public radio. But I don't think Murrow
could function even in public radio, because his programs would get
the managers of public radio in trouble with the chairs of the
congressional committees that rule on the public radio
appropriations. You would have to have an all-Murrow cable channel,
and maybe Murrow would have to own it. And that would be the only
way that that would work.
Otherwise, he could write for magazines maybe.
MH: If Murrow were around now, and I realize this in a way
may be silly conjecture. But . . . we've got the war in Iraq, we've
got so many social issues going on, we've got sort of a sea change
in our federal government's policies, a huge privatization push
going on, so if Murrow were to pop up today and go on assignment,
what stories would grab him?
BE: He'd be all over everything you just said. I think the
closest to Murrow's like today is Bill Moyers. Of course, [he
retired from his weekly public affairs show Now]. He left it
for whatever reasons, or for whatever pressures, who knows? But
that just reinforces my notion that Murrow could not function
today.
MH: That's a little sad, isn't it?
BE: I think he would be the president of a small college
and be superb at it.
MH: So he would be the type of guy who would put other
people together to do good work. He would have brilliant . . .
maybe salons that he would hold, and he would be an influencer of
people.
BE: Yes, and he would be telling young people to challenge
authority and work for the Constitution, guaranteeing that people's
rights are protected.
MH: You were a pioneer of sorts. You helped found the news
of National Public Radio. You started at All Things
Considered, went to Morning Edition. Did you consciously
think you were walking in the footsteps of Edward R. Murrow at that
time? Is that something that occurred to you?
BE: Well, we all are, in the sense of being broadcasters
and having the opportunity to do programs in his spirit. I was
maybe helped along in that area by a fellow named Ed Bliss, who was
a writer for Murrow and was my journalism professor in graduate
school at American University. I got first-hand Murrow stories
every day. We were friends for 30 years. Bliss was telling me all
the time that I could do this, that Murrow did it this way, and
that's how we ought to do it.
MH: If you were looking [for] a career now yourself, and
you were a college-age kid, what do you think you would do, in this
climate?
BE: A lot of college people are a lot further along than I
am in terms of technology, blogs, and all. I've got a couple I go
to, but that's another world for me. A lot of young people get
their news there, and I don't know much about that. I'm sort of
stuck in the more traditional world of radio, although the radio
I'm in now is a different kind of radio, and may be the future of
radio, who knows? I'm really excited about being a pioneer in that,
too.
MH: And you get to spend your time interviewing people.
This is long-form for you, as opposed to being an anchor and a host
in a magazine format.
BE: Yeah, and having a lot of bosses. I'm interviewing the
people I want to interview now for as long as I want to interview
them. And that's quite a change.
MH: Quite a change, and it's got to be quite a
challenge.
BE: Yes and a lot more satisfying.
MH: Can I ask you to read a section of the book that
touches you or you find most interesting?
BE: In 1959, with Murrow so marginalized at CBS that it was
really over for him, he just let it fly. He gave a speech that
angered not just CBS, but quite a few other people in the industry.
He was arguing for a journalistic presence in prime time. That
doesn't sound very controversial, because now we have it, but it
was. He read this indictment of television and what it had done. He
felt it had squandered the opportunity to be more than it was.
"Unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that
television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse,
and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those
who look at it, and those who work at it, may see a totally
different picture too late . . .
"I do not advocate that we turn television into a 27-inch
wailing wall, where longhairs constantly moan about the state of
our culture and our defense. But I would just like to see it
reflect occasionally the hard, unyielding realities of the world in
which we live. . . .
"This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, it can even
inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are
determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires
and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle
to be fought against ignorance, intolerance, and indifference. This
weapon of television could be useful. . . ."
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