TMV NOTE: We loved this post when Jonathan Singer posted here — about 5 minutes before Harriet Miers withdrew her Supreme Court nomination, and the post seemingly got “lost” amid the breaking news. So we’ve reposted it, so more readers can enjoy it.
Every month or so, I write a column for The Collage, a campus newspaper founded by current New York Times executive editor Bill Keller. October’s topic: the need for real objectivity in reporting.
This month, sophomore director George Clooney scored a success with his historical docudrama, “Good Night, and Good Luck.� Set during the height of the Cold War, the film details the successful effort CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow to undercut the specious charges of Red-baiting Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy.
Underlying the movie is the belief that there is a truth in the world, and that at times the journalistic trend towards the false objectivity of giving each side of a debate equal weight must be thrown out the window. As Clooney explained to Jon Stewart, “The reason I did it was because it thought it was an interesting time to talk about the responsibilities of the fourth estate.� Murrow, as played exquisitely by David Strathairn, becomes fed up with simply repeating McCarthy’s unfounded claims of Communist infiltration of the government and devotes an entire program to exposing McCarthy as a sham. As a result of his efforts, and those of others like him, McCarthy was relegated to a position of historical ignominy.
Reporters today would be well-served by taking a lesson from Murrow.
The column continues here.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.