History of Edward R. Murrow
Inventing Broadcast Journalism
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In spite of his youth and inexperience in journalism, Edward R. Murrow assembled a team of radio reporters in Europe that brought World War II into the parlors of America and set the gold standard for all broadcast news to this day.
By Mark Bernstein
In 1937 Edward R. Murrow sailed with his wife, Janet, to London where he was to take up the post of chief CBS radio correspondent in Europe. At the time, Murrow had never written a news story in his life, and he had never made a scheduled radio broadcast. He was 29 years old.
During the next three years, Murrow would oversee the birth of foreign news broadcasting, and he would make his own clipped baritone voice one of the most recognized by his countrymen. More important, Murrow, utilizing the new medium, would report from beleaguered London during the Blitz of 1940, dramatizing Britain's stand-alone defense against Adolf Hitler to an America that slowly rallied to England's cause. In so doing, he virtually invented modern broadcast journalism.
Murrow was a somewhat unlikely champion for the British. He had traveled to England before, but had been thoroughly unimpressed and later told one English audience: "I thought your streets narrow and mean, your tailors over-advertised, your climate unbearable, your class-consciousness offensive. You couldn't cook. Your young men seemed without vigor or purpose. I admired your history, doubted your future."
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