Thread by @kegill

Edward R Murrow proved correct again.
“This instrument [television] can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and even it can inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends.”

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by @leannenaramore view original on Twitter

Murrow anticipated the disparity between news coverage of previously unacknowledged deaths of American citizens and that of a racist celebrity:
en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edward_R.…

Murrow named the systemic flaw: television news is an “incompatible combination of show business, advertising and news... when you get all three under one roof, the dust never settles.”

Murrow said these words when there were only three networks: “television in the main insulates us from the realities of the world in which we live. If this state of affairs continues, we may alter an advertising slogan to read: LOOK NOW AND PAY LATER.”

“For surely we shall pay for using this most powerful instrument of communication to insulate the citizenry from the hard and demanding realities which must be faced if we are to survive. I mean the word survive literally.”
Murrow 1958

Are we in any less peril 60 years later? No, Trump is our McCarthy.

“No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices.”
Murrow, 1954, CBS broadcast

“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 just the kind of people Joe McCarthy wants.”
Murrow 1954

And if you have no real understanding of Murrow or those dark days post WWII, rent Good Night, and Good Luck (2005)

blogs.stlawu.edu/weeklymedialit…