Edward R. Murrow's Story and His Enduring Influence on Journalism

Quick answer: Who was Edward R. Murrow?

Edward R. Murrow was a CBS broadcaster who brought live reports of the London Blitz to American radio listeners, flew on combat missions over Europe in World War II, and later used his television program See It Now to challenge Senator Joseph McCarthy. He is regarded as one of journalism's greatest figures for his honesty and integrity.

"Good night, and good luck." Edward R. Murrow closed his broadcasts with those words. Born Egbert Roscoe Murrow on April 25, 1908, at Polecat Creek near Greensboro, North Carolina, to Quaker farmers, he moved with his family to Washington State as a boy and worked his way through Washington State College, majoring in speech. As president of the National Student Federation of America, he urged students to take an interest in world affairs. In New York he became assistant director of the Institute of International Education and helped the Emergency Committee find positions in America for refugee scholars, many of them Jews barred from their jobs by Nazi racial laws. He joined CBS in 1935 and in 1937 became its European director in London. He hired William L. Shirer, the first of the reporters later known as the Murrow Boys. When Hitler annexed Austria in March 1938, Murrow chartered a plane to Vienna, and CBS went on the air on March 13 with a news roundup from several European capitals. During the Blitz he broadcast from London rooftops as bombs fell, bringing the war into American living rooms before the United States entered it. He could not be "objective," he felt, while a "thousand years of history and civilization" were "being smashed while America remained on the sidelines." He flew on some 25 combat missions over Europe. After the war he moved to television, and his See It Now reports helped turn the country against Senator Joseph McCarthy. In 1961 he left CBS to head the U.S. Information Agency. He received several Peabody Awards, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and an honorary British knighthood, and he died on April 27, 1965, two days after his 57th birthday. "To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful," he said.

Why it matters for leaders: Telling the truth plainly, even when it costs you, is what earns trust.

Q: What was See It Now?

A: Murrow's CBS television program, whose 1954 reports on Senator Joseph McCarthy helped lead to McCarthy's censure.

Q: Did Murrow fly in combat?

A: Yes. He flew on about 25 combat missions over Europe during World War II, including a famous December 1943 bombing raid on Berlin.

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By John Fenzel, founder and CEO of Heroes' Path Foundation