The Birth of Modern News

We take world news completely for granted.  We expect to be able to tune into the radio, turn on the television, or power up the computer and instantly find out what is going on anywhere in the world.  But the professional reporting to which we are so accustomed has only been around for the past 70 years.  And it might never have come into existence at all had it not been for Edward R. Murrow, the radio, and World War II.

Before Murrow

Perhaps only journalism history buffs remember him today but in the 1930s, CBS’ Boake Carter was one of the biggest names in the news business.  Except that what he relayed to millions of listeners wasn’t news at all; it was commentary with the occasional factoid thrown in.  Boake Carter never actually left his magnificent Philadelphia estate to discover what was going on in the world but had an opinion about everything.  Opinions to which millions were entitled.  And so he informed his listeners that the New Deal was dragging the world into war while Hitler was perfectly justified in taking over Austria.

But then in the 1930s, even the modern idea of radio news—hard, fast, professional reporting on the ground—had not yet been invented.

Murrow’s Idealism

Or perhaps it would be more correct to say that the modern idea of news had not yet been implemented.  For Edward R. Murrow had a vision.  By the time he sailed for London, this 29-year old wanted to create radio news about real people, not just government functionaries.  He wanted a news that would be relayed instantly, by radio; news that would be told by reporters who had seen it first-hand.  The kind of news you might find in a newspaper or magazine—but told instantly, on the spot yet just as professionally.

CBS wouldn’t hear of it.  If there had to be a live news feed, it had better be about something important.  A coronation perhaps.  The notion that radio news could be (much less should be) about the man on the street—well, you would expect a kid who had befriended the socialist Harold Laski to dream that one up, wouldn’t you?

But Murrow persisted.  He was, after all, CBS’ “European Director” which in practice meant that while CBS would not let him on air, they did let him recruit someone to help.  Murrow recruited William Shirer.

The Anschluss

On March 12, 1938, when Hitler swallowed up Austria, NBC’s Max Jordan went on the air to tell Americans about it.  CBS with its policy of broadcasting events (children’s choirs, in this case) had been scooped. 

Within minutes CBS headquarters in New York demanded a European round-up to be broadcast that night.  The demand came in at 5 PM on Sunday.  Everyone—from politicians to technicians—was gone.  The studios were closed.  A round-up such as this had never been attempted before.

But eight hours later, sitting in a studio in London with British politicians beside him, William Shirer delivered an analysis of what England would do now (little) and immediately afterward Ed Murrow sketched a picture of Vienna that day.  From Austria, Murrow told his listeners that “the crowds are courteous as they’ve always been, but many people are in a holiday mood; they lift their right arm a little higher than in Berlin and the ‘Heil Hitler’ is said a little more loudly.”

Modern news—instantaneous news about real people told by professionals at the scene—was born.