Edward R. Murrow: And The Birth Of Broadcast Journalism

In this brisk and incisive account, Bob Edwards shows us how Edward R. Murrow helped establish broadcast journalism - and, in the process, reminds us how far most broadcast news has fallen from the reportorial standards set by Murrow and the people he hired at CBS.

Sent to Europe in the late 1930s by CBS, Murrow pioneered the concept of radio reports by foreign correspondents, nightly roundups of European news, and, later, “you are there” reports from London during the blitz. After the war, Murrow launched See It Now, the first in-depth television news program - and helped make CBS the gold standard for television news. Edwards brings to life the great stories Murrow covered - the blitz, bombing raids over Berlin, the liberation of Buchenwald, red-baiting by Senator Joe McCarthy - as well as the ups and downs of his career at CBS. Complete with an afterword that analyses the decline of broadcast news since the 1980s, this book will be required reading for anyone interested in twentieth-century history and the media.