From Publishers Weekly
In 1937, Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965) was dispatched to Europe by CBS Radio as its European representative. Although the job consisted of finding entertainment for the radio, world events would soon intervene. With Hitler beginning his rampage, Murrow fought isolationism at home and provincialism at CBS to form a legendary group of electronic journalists. William L. Shirer became Berlin correspondent, and Murrow, holding down London himself, hired the vain, insecure Eric Sevareid for Paris. Streetwise New Yorker Larry LeSueur, covered Dunkirk. There were also Charles Collingwood, Murrow's "Bonnie Prince Charlie," who loved the good life; Winston Burdett, onetime Communist later turned stool pigeon for a red-hunting Senate committee; and Howard K. Smith, Southern gentleman and Rhodes Scholar, who would take "the last train from Berlin" when the U.S. entered the war. With the end of the war, we see "the boys" as they evolve in a changing America, resisting television (they all, at first, hated it); McCarthyism (Sevareid, Murrow and, especially, Collingwood would be fearless); hubris (Shirer became so arrogant he was fired); and the CBS corporate structure (William S. Paley, corporate shark, would always win). Cloud, a former Washington bureau chief for Time, and his wife, Olson, former White House correspondent for the Baltimore Sun, have written a lively, colloquial history of broadcast journalism that is so exciting one's impulse is to read it in a single sitting.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
At first blush, this book by a husband-and-wife team of journalists may seem an oft-told tale, a further deifying of CBS News' Edward R. Murrow (already deified in numerous autobiographies by the "boys"). But it is much, much more than that; it is a thorough and scholarly documentation of radio reportage during World War II by the likes of Murrow, William Shirer, Eric Sevareid, Charles Collingwood, Howard K. Smith, Hugh Downs, et al., which created a whole new journalistic industry. The Murrow Boys is written with page-turning verve; the largely egocentric, hard-drinking cast is presented in detail with all warts exposed. But the story is also a sad one, revealing the breakup of a fine network news operation by executives focused on the bottom line and, in more recent years, by the advent of local television newsrooms peopled with cookie-cutter personnel selected for good looks and ethnic balance and without regard for journalistic experience. This book gives one pause about the quality of the news we get on TV. Highly recommended for all libraries.?Chet Hagan, Berks Cty. P.L. System, Pa.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
