Words We Can Use Today

"Black Hawk Down" and "Saving Private Ryan" are the movies for military people.

"Miracle" is the movie for hockey players.

"Rudy" is the movie for football players.

Everyone has their movie, the movie that speaks to their profession and represents it.

Mine, as a journalist, is "Good Night, and Good Luck."

It tells the story of Edward R. Murrow and his fight against the crazy and illogical actions of Sen. McCarthy during the Red Scare in the 1950s.

And it tells the story of Murrow completely and utterly OWNING McCarthy.

True, Murrow and the CBS crew that helped bring McCarthy down were "liberals," and true, McCarthy was "conservative," but to all who point to that, let me remind you that definitions of those two words change almost weekly.

Anyways, the movie details how Murrow and CBS took on the "junior senator from Wisconsin," and is a rallying cry for journalists everywhere. Corporate is pressuring the reporters not to get too heavy, McCarthy is attacking everyone (he picked the most convenient cause; anyone that disagreed with him was automatically a communist), and one of their own snaps under the pressure and kills himself.

Not exactly a easy story.

But they pursued it. They went after what they knew was wrong, what they disagreed with, and sought the truth.

And reported it.

This is something the journalists of today can take to heart. Today, much like in the 1950s, people are happy with their lives (for the most part), and don't want bad news.

"We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But 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." -Edward R. Murrow

He of course was referring to television itself, but the quote is easily extrapolated to news itself. Instead, people whine when FOXnews covers the anti-Obama things. They just want happy things, they want Biden saying the stimulus is working (it's not, and the AP even fact-checked Biden's speech), they want Obama telling them the economy is fine.

They don't want the Truth.

God forbid we should give the people information they need to know about their world.

"Let us dream to the extent of saying that on a given Sunday night the time normally occupied by Ed Sullivan is given over to a clinical survey of the state of American education, and a week or two later the time normally used by Steve Allen is devoted to a thoroughgoing study of American policy in the Middle East." -Edward R. Murrow

This movie, even though it is a few years old at this point, still applies to us today.

Journalists, don't be pansies. Seek The Truth, And Report It.