SACRAMENTO, Calif. - I'm addicted to journalism movies, it's true, but Good Night and Good Luck is worth seeing for anyone who wants to see how much impact one journalist can have.
The movie is the story about Edward R. Murrow, who took on one of the biggest and sleaziest bullies to take the political stage in the U.S., Senator Joe McCarthy.
What made McCarthy sooooo dangerous was he figured out the major weakness of the press at the time - that they would report whatever he said without bothering to check the facts. He was a U.S. Senator, after all.
It took Murrow and a courageous CBS news team to point out that nearly all the people he was indicting as being Communists in fact were not. McCarthy practically defined the word 'smear' when it comes to politics.
While the movie gives some reason for cheer, a quick reading of this morning's newspaper points out how easily the press is still led and how easy it is to divert the collect attention of thousands of media outlets.
More than 2,000 dead in Iraq, liars abounding in the White House and an economy about to crash will all be ignored this week so the nation can argue about a new nutjob nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court.
Oh, by the way. How are things going in Pakistan?
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