Edward R. Murrow
Edward R. Murrow
Edward R. Murrow KBEwas an American broadcast journalist. He first came to prominence with a series of radio broadcasts for the news division of the Columbia Broadcasting System during World War II, which were followed by millions of listeners in the United States. During the war he assembled a team of foreign correspondents who came to be known as the Murrow Boys...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionRadio Host
Date of Birth25 April 1908
CityGuilford County, NC
CountryUnited States of America
Edward R. Murrow quotes about
This instrument [radio] can teach. It can illuminate, yes, and 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's nothing but wires and lights in a box.
I have no feud, either with my employers, any sponsors, or with the professional critics of radio and television. But I am seized with an abiding fear regarding what these two instruments are doing to our society, our culture and our heritage.
We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another.
We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.
I have always been on the side of the heretics, against those who burned them, because the heretics so often turned out to be right....Dead, but right.
No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices.
We are in the same tent as the clowns and the freaks-that's show business.
To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful.
One of the basic troubles with radio and television news is that both instruments have grown up as an incompatible combination of show business, advertising and news. Each of the three is a rather bizarre and demanding profession. And when you get all three under one roof, the dust never settles.
If radio news is to be regarded as a commodity, only acceptable when saleable, then I don't care what you call it - I say it isn't news.
I simply cannot accept that there are, on every story, two equal and logical sides to an argument.
We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason.
Our history will be what we make of it. If we go on as we are, then history will take its revenge and retribution will not limp in catching up with us. So, just once in a while let us exhault the importance of ideas and information.
If none of us ever read a book that was "dangerous," had a friend who was "different," or joined an organization that advocated "change," we would all be the kind of people Joe McCarthy wants.