Excellent historical sketch of perhaps the best newsman of the 20th century.

Rating: Null/10 (6 April 2006)

I was a small boy in the rural south when Edward R. Murrow was doing his best TV work in the 1950s. I can't say that I really remember him, because we didn't have a TV during most of that time. But I do have a feel for that period and this movie, filmed in B&W, is an excellent representation of that period.
Murrow made many important contributions to the art of journalism, but this movie focuses on one of them, the work to expose Joseph McCarthy for the mean-spirited person he really was, conducting Communism witch hunts and lying often to do so. The extent of Murrow's investigation and reporting resulted in McCarthy's censure, and he died, literally drinking himself to death, only a few years after the period represented in this movie.
David Strathairn is good as Edward R. Murrow, and was nominated for Best Actor. Robert Downey Jr. was Joe Wershba, Patricia Clarkson was his wife, Shirley Wershba, although married couples were not supposed to be working together at CBS. Frank Langella was William Paley, Murrow's boss at CBS. Jeff Daniels was Sig Mickelson, and George Clooney, who also directed and co-wrote, was Murrow's key associate, Fred Friendly . The movie makes ample use of old footage showing McCarthy and some of the hearings in Washington.
Good movie, and is a "must see" for anyone wanting to understand more about the political and news climate of the 1950s.