From Edward R Murrow to Katie Couric: The Dumbing Down of TV News

The Washington Post:

Katie Couric to Report From Iraq, Syria

NEW YORK -- Katie Couric plans to leave Wednesday for an ambitious reporting trip to Iraq and Syria _ the CBS anchor's first time in the war zone _ in anticipation of a crucial military report on progress of the American effort.

Couric will anchor the "CBS Evening News" from Baghdad next Tuesday and Wednesday, then from Damascus on Thursday and Friday.

Couric will travel throughout Iraq to talk to military and civilian leaders, soldiers and average Iraqis, spending most of her time outside of Baghdad. CBS News would not reveal many specifics of her plans in advance because of competitive and safety concerns. The trip, in the works for six weeks, anticipates the surge progress report by Gen. David Petraeus that is expected the second week of September.

"You can't help but get a very detached perspective when you're not there and you're not witnessing things firsthand," Couric told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "I'm curious about very basic questions regarding living conditions, about how much fear there is in the street, about how the soldiers really are doing."

I can't wait for the first closeup of Katie Couric's tear-stained face after she realizes how awful the war is.

I'm sorry, but count Yours Truly as among those who sees Couric's trip to Iraq more as a desperate move to boost sagging ratings than as a act of heroism. I'm sure Couric's horse and pony show will be no different than when John McCain and Joe Lieberman went and reported the same old lies when they got back. The perky anchor for the CBS Evening News will be the safest person in Iraq.

Living in an era where Ms. Katie Couric is getting paid $60, 000 a day for reading from a teleprompter brings to mind how sad, tragic and depressing George Clooney’s Good Night, and Good Luck is , if only because it pointedly reminds me how much we lost. Every once in a while I'll grab the DVD from my collection and watch it again, just to depress myself some more.

Good Night, and Good Luck is a complex film that’s almost too big to neatly fit into the narrow category of being a “historical” drama. Yes, it’s a loving Valentine to a bygone era in American history, but it’s also a horror movie, a time capsule packed by a sharp-eyed, unsentimental archivist, and a political allegory. Specifically, as Lillian Hellman commented in her memoir describing her experiences as a blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter during that period, it was “scoundrel time”.

When Good Night, and Good Luck begins, it is 1953 and the angry hysteria of McCarthyism is at its peak. Anybody who foolishly expressed their First Amendment rights suddenly found themselves vilified as “commies” and either lost their jobs or were threatened with treason for “anti-American” activities. In those grim days, the United States was a horror novel co-written by George Orwell and Franz Kafka.

People were absolutely scared to death of Senator Joseph McCarthy. They had good reason to be. So can you imagine what an odd mismatch it appeared to be when Edward R. Murrow, the respected TV journalist, confronted this Golem from the "Better Dead, Than Red" days?

Although Good Night, and Good Luck is only his second film, Clooney constructs this gripping cat-and-mouse game with skill and confidence. It’s a pressure cooker of a drama that simmers to a feverish, claustrophobic intensity. However, throughout the film, Clooney inserts small, ironic historical bookmarks of the era that brings to mind political songwriter Gil Scott-Heron’s observation: “What you call nostalgia ain’t what I been missing”.

First of all, there aren’t any men or women of color working at CBS. If so, they were mopping the floors, taking out the trash, and shining white men’s shoes. There wasn’t a “White Only” sign in sight, but it didn’t have to be. No, I’m not saying that the people employed at CBS were racist, but the circumstances that kept the workplaces in America segregated certainly were.

The few women who weren’t secretaries at CBS in the 1950s had to struggle with gender politics as well. Sure, they worked just as hard as their male counterparts in the newsroom, but they were also expected to get the coffee, too. Do you think somebody is going to yell at Ms. Couric, “Hey, Katie! Will you get me a large Vanilla Chai latte - skim milk, please, no cream” today?

And, of course, everybody smoked. In Good Night, and Good Luck, there’s a scary, it-shouldn’t-be-funny-but-it-is moment when an actor in a TV commercial is selling lung cancer with a smile as he cheerfully explains why Kent cigarettes are “good for you”. No, I don’t miss these distasteful relics at all.

But Edward R. Murrow, the honorable “face of television” is gone and he left behind a vacuum that today’s journalistic pygmies have been unable to fill. Other than a holy madman like Keith Olbermann, the tough, stubborn, hard-boiled TV news reporter who digs up scandalous crimes that the public needs to know about is a heroic archetype in American culture that doesn’t exist anymore. A contemporary talking head like Katie Couric isn’t on the CBS evening news to inform us. Couric is there to make us feel better. She’s a smiling, bright-eyed opiate telling us comfortable, well-written lies. And all of us are poorer for it.

The German philosopher Nietzsche wrote, “Madness is rare in individuals - but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule.” Good Night, and Good Luck illustrates in chilling detail how McCarthyism, or, the “Red Scare” was the collective lunacy that seized the United States by the throat and wouldn’t let go. Brave men like Edward R. Murrow helped set us free by taking a stand, asking the hard questions and telling us the truth.

Who’s doing that now?

When did news become lightweight entertainment?

After seeing the film, I couldn't help thinking that maybe the angry patriotic fervor ignited by 9/11 which led to this brutal and unnecessary war with Iraq could have been stopped if a real TV or newspaper journalist--and not a White House cheerleader--asked the right questions before it was too late.

Good Night, and Good Luck ends with these prophetic words about television by Edward R. Murrow:

“This instrument 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 is merely wires and lights in a box.”

Hey, guess what? Amy Winehouse won't be appearing at the MTV music awards this year! Details at 11.