re: CBS News

["David W. Harris" <dwh@totalnetnh.net>]

Joseph Gallant, noting a mispronunciation of "My Lai" on a CBS Radio
hourly newscast this past weekend, wrote:

"Edward R. Murrow must still be spinning in his grave......."

I imagine Mr. Murrow was doing enough spinning last week to finish The
Big Dig all by himself.  Did anyone else take offense to last Monday's
television special entitled "We Were There: CBS News at 50"?  By my
reckoning, CBS News is 65, taking the establishment of the Columbia News
Service in 1933 as the starting point. Many folks would argue that the
organization's finest hours came from Murrow and colleagues like William
L. Shirer, Robert Trout, Charles Collingwood, and Eric Sevareid during
WWII--coverage that demanded broadcast journalism be taken seriously.

There was no mention of the above on the TV special.  OK, I know they
just wanted to talk about 50 years of TELEVISION news but even then they
did a pretty lame job of it.  Vietnam, Chicago '68, Watergate,
Challenger explosion, Rodney King beating & post-trial riots:  VERY
familiar footage (I could have closed my eyes, listened, and seen the
same pictures with my mind's eye) with little insight added.  No history
of CBS television news, no pictures of what the first "CBS Evening News"
set looked like, no montage of anchors from 1948 to present.

There was no acknowledgment of radio on the special but there was a nod
toward Murrow with clips from his skewering of Joe McCarthy--the only
item from the black-and-white era deemed worthy of mentioning.  Wait a
minute...there WAS one mention of radio...when host Charles Osgood
closed the program with "I'll see you on the radio."

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