Edward R. Murrow and the Birth of Broadcast Journalism (Turning Points in History) Book

The host of NPR's Morning Edition chronicles the rise of radio and television news In this brisk and incisive account, Bob Edwards shows us how Edward R. Murrow helped establish broadcast journalism—and, in the process, reminds us how far most broadcast news has fallen from the reportorial standards set by Murrow and the people he hired at CBS. Sent to Europe in the late 1930s by CBS, Murrow pioneered the concept of radio reports by foreign correspondents, nightly roundups of European news, and, later, "you are there" reports from London during the blitz. After the war, Murrow launched See It Now, the first in-depth television news program—and helped make CBS the gold standard for television news. Edwards brings to life the great stories Murrow covered—the blitz, bombing raids over Berlin, the liberation of Buchenwald, red-baiting by Senator Joe McCarthy—as well as the ups and downs of his career at CBS. Complete with an afterword that analyzes the decline of broadcast news since the 1980s, this book will be required reading for anyone interested in twentieth-century history and the media. "It's amazing to me that Bob Edwards, who didn't know Murrow, knows him so well. . . I found in this book the Murrow I knew."—Daniel Schorr, Senior News Analyst, NPR "Get it, read it, and pass it on. Every aspiring broadcast journalist should have it."—Bill Moyers Bob Edwards (Arlington, VA) has been the host since 1979 of NPR's Morning Edition, the most popular program on public radio, with 13 million listeners each week. He and his program won the prestigious Peabody Award in 1999 for "two hours of daily in-depth news and entertainment expertly helmed by a man who embodies the essence of excellence in radio"; he also won the Edward R. Murrow Award in 1984. He is the author of Fridays with Red.Read More