Good Luck And Good Night Essay

677 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Role of accuracy and fairness in journalism

The film, Good Luck and Good Night, directed by George Clooney depicts a group of journalists that work for the famously known news company, CBS. The principle characters consisted of CBS reporter Edward R. Murrow, played by David Strathairn, CBS producer Fred W. Friendly, played by George Clooney, and the opposing force and senator of Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy, played by himself. The main story of this film consisted of Murrow, Strathairn, and a small team of journalists from CBS to point out Senator McCarthy’s lies and excesses.
One of the main problems that helped build up the issues with McCarthyism was the event of an Air Force Officer in Chicago being dismissed due to his father being accused of being a communist. At first the journalists were hesitant in pursuing this story due to the possible backlash from McCarthy, but they agree to send two men to get footage and decide later. The story runs and begins to revolt against McCarthyism. On top of this issue, another occurrence of McCarthyism takes place with a woman working for the Pentagon gets accused of being a Communist spy. There are several problems with this including that there are several other women with the same name and that McCarthy leave the hearing after only a few short questions. But the biggest problem they had to
Many journalists need to instead of making the authorities happy about what’s being broadcasted to change what was being said, but broadcast the truth to inform the audience of what’s occuring to keep the news down the middle and not one sided. This also raises flags about the news stations trustworthiness on reporting news as if it is either over exaggerated or favorite a specific person. Not only this, but if reporters report news to favor a specific group, then it would cause many accusations and unwanted problems from the other side of the

Show More
Related

  • The Great Fear

    819 Words  | 2 Pages

    When the Tydings Committee issued a majority report dismissing all of McCarthy’s allegations and condemning them as “a fraud and a hoax perpetrated on the Senate of the United States and the American people.” Republican members of the American sub-committee condemned the majority report and the Democrats who signed it and McCarthy turned his defeat into a victory through the great publicity he received. Soon after Tydings report was considered pro-Communist. Like the Salem Witch Trials lack of substantial proof, many people were willing to believe McCarthy’s charges without any evidence. Soon world events seemed to be playing into McCarthy’s hands and he could use it all against the Truman administration. McCarthy’s fame grew and he because more careless, and instead of hinting nameless lists, he started naming names.

    Read More

  • Edward R. Murrow: A Brief Film Analysis

    929 Words  | 2 Pages

    Murrow held on October 25, 1958 followed with a speech from him on the stage. The movie flashbacks to Murrow’s life as a journalist and the efforts made in his television program, See It Now. It provided insight into the issues that occurred inside the CBS News building such as the decisions that Murrow bypassed by his Chief, William S. Paley. In addition, the screen paused to provide information that read: “Throughout the 1940’s and 1950’s America was overwhelmed with concerns about the threat of communism. Senator Joseph McCarthy made a public accusation that more than two hundred ‘card-carrying’ communists had infiltrated the United States government. Few in the press were willing to stand up against McCarthy for fear they would be targets (SITE MOVIE).” This showed background information how the fear of communism was a big issue in the 1940’s and 1950’s. In addition, the movie included many visual references to the issue of communism from previous recordings that show how McCarthy acts and what he says about

    Read More

  • The Use of Parallelism in Fahrenheit 451

    883 Words  | 2 Pages

    To get a clear view and understanding of the book, first must review the time period in history. The book was written in the mid 1950's during the cold war. Former General McCarthy, then U.S. Senator started a fire ball of suspicion, suppression, and incarceration. This had a very huge impact on the entrainment industry, which included everyone from playwrights to filmmakers, as well as writers and actors. If anyone in that time period was suspected of being a communist, the government could come and pull them out of their home. At the least a suspected communist would be banned, or put on a black ball list. Printed in the Times, McCarthy's First Slander, "Overnight, his speech sparked a media firestorm that played to the basest fears of Americans swept up in a frightening cold war and triggered loyalty oaths, blacklists and personal betrayals that cost an estimated 10,000 Americans their jobs and some shattered innocents their lives." (Johanna McGeary 28) This happened to a number of actors and film makers during that time period. The black ball list was a list of names of people who were believed to be communist. The people on this list came from the movie industry as well as writers. These people would no longer be able to get work ...

    Read More

  • Elia Kazan vs. The House Un-American Activities Committee

    2308 Words  | 5 Pages

    As I mentioned at the onset, Hollywood is a master storyteller, especially when the stories it tells are about itself. In this case, Hollywood had to write its own ending to the story, since Kazan never apologized or offered any closure of his own on the subject. As a result Kazan became the antagonist more than even the Communists themselves. HUAC, in hindsight, was an ugly, embarrassing incident in American history that many would prefer to forget. Yet even after the death of Elia Kazan in 2003, the debate rages on.

    Read More

  • Comparison of McCarthyism and the U.S. Patriot Act

    1945 Words  | 4 Pages

    A Documentary History (Paperback). Oxford University Press, USA, 1996. Scott, Peter Dale, Deep Politics, University of California Press; Reprint edition (June 22, 1996). Mitgang, Herbert Lillian Hellman's FBI File, Dangerous dossiers: exposing the secret war against America's greatest authors, New York: D.I. Fine, 1988, retrieved from a href="http://www.writing.upenn.edu/afilreis/50s/hellman-per-fbi.html">http://www.writing.upenn.edu/afilreis/50s/hellman-per-fbi.html/a>. Ted Morgan, Reds: McCarthyism in Twentieth-Century America, New York: Random House, 1st edition, 2003.

    Read More

  • The Venona Project

    1044 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...y Wheeling speech created nationwide hysteria, and with its impeccable timing just days after the conviction of the State Official Alga Hiss for lying under oath about his association with the communist Soviet as a spy, fueled the fight on communism. (citation) McCarthy war on communism during the “Second Red Scare” did not leave any individual safe from accusations. He attacked government agents, entertainment industry workers, educators, union members, and alienated the left-wing Democrats. McCarthy helped to create the atmosphere of suspicion and panic with his growth in media coverage. McCarthy’s words made for big headlines and the media was quick to cover his stories. This exposure helped facilitate American approval of McCarthy and empowered him to make more accusations on those suspected of subversion. In 1953, McCarthy headed the Government Operations Commit

    Read More

  • Joseph McCarthy and Communism

    772 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout McCarthy’s political journey, panic that arose from the witch hunt and fear of communism became very well known. That feeling became known as McCarthyism (Senator Joseph McCarthy 2). Communism wouldn’t be what it is today if it weren’t for Joseph McCarthy.

    Read More

  • Good Night and Good Luck, directed by George Clooney

    697 Words  | 2 Pages

    Good Night and Good Luck starts of with Edward Murrow (Strathairn) giving a speech in front of, who the audience finds out to be, his friends and colleagues. Then the audience is hurled back to the early 1950s where Edward Murrow begins his assault on Joseph McCarthy. This first scene has Natalie (Borstein) and Millie (Abdoo), two secretaries for CBS, walking into the news studio with the song “TV is the Thing This Year” (Reeves) blasting in the background, while information regarding the search for communists is being presented. While the film is all in black and white this open scene with the upbeat music to compliment it give the feel of prosperity, which proves to be s...

    Read More

  • Night Essay

    1089 Words  | 3 Pages

    When a person's faith is also an alternative for their culture and morals, it proves challenging to take that sense of security in that faith away from them. In Night, Elie Wiesel, a Jewish student living in Sighet, Transylvania during the war of 1942, uses his studies in Talmud and the Kabbalah as not only a religious practice but a lifestyle. Elie and his fellow civilians are warned, however, by his Kabbalah teacher who says that during the war, German aggressors are aggregately imprisoning, deporting, and annihilating millions of Jews. When Elie and his family are victim of this aggression, Elie realizes how crucial his faith in God is if he is to survive the Holocaust. He vows after being separated from his mother and sisters that he will protect he and his father from death, even though as death nears, Elie gradually becomes closer to losing his faith. In the end, to Elie's devastation, Elie makes it out of the Holocaust alone after his father dies from the intense seclusion to malnutrition and deprivation. Elie survives the Holocaust through a battle of conscience--first by believing in God, then resisting his faith in God, and ultimately replacing his faith with obligation to his father.

    Read More

  • Joseph McCarthy and Communism

    1037 Words  | 3 Pages

    ... middle of paper ... ... When people today hear McCarthy’s name, most automatically think ‘liar, he was crazy, he ruined peoples lives.’ Some people, however, would say that ‘yes, he may have been wrong on most of his points, but he knew what was happening and he had been desperately trying to warn the people about Communism.’

    Read More

  • The Heritage Foundation

    1073 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...cy. For this reason, it is clear that the media should not engage in any activity aimed at taking sides when dealing with the policy at hand. Journalists should always monitor all the policies and arguments from the foundation so as to ensure that they have left an opportunity of judgment from the public. This will ensure that public policy has been promoted without any form of discrimination or support (Abelson, 2006).

    Read More

  • Mass Hysteria

    1218 Words  | 3 Pages

    McCarthy was elected senate after becoming a lawyer in his sate of Wisconsin. During the first few years of his term nothing major really happened until 1950. In a speech to the Women’s club of wheeling in West Virginia he stated that he had a list in his hand of about 205 known members of the communist party working for the United States department. President Harry Truman had signed an executive order that said that all communists or fascists could not obtain a United States government job. The FBI played a big role in the investigation of this list McCarthy contained. McCarthy’s friend j. Edgar Hoover, which was a violent ant-communist in the federal government, could not wait to expose the people McCarthy accused of being communists. McCarthy’s list created a nationwide scar among the people of the United States. Everything McCarthy said was a lie and he had no evidence to show that the people he accused were really communist but, because of the start of the Korean War and the arrest of two American soldiers accused of spying on the Soviet Union American citizen...

    Read More

  • Good Night and Good Luck

    860 Words  | 2 Pages

    being a Communist, with the only source being a report on how his father reads a Serbian newspaper. (Clooney) Without genuine evidence from a credible source, an argument is as good as a blatant claim. McCarthy’s “evidence” is in fact unsubstantiated in itself. Therefore, his accusations contain no basis, and lack the foundation needed to provide solid and subs...

    Read More

  • The Causes of McCarthyism

    1138 Words  | 3 Pages

    As an individual in the middle of Twentieth century Joseph McCarthy had a rather intense effect on society. He started the movement that bears his name. McCarthyism was the movement that caused many changes in the lives of the people of the 1950's. McCarthy headed the charge against communism in the United States after the second World War. Through his actions many people were accused of being communists and hastilly judged to be so because of the general feeling toward communism. What causes such an incredible uprising. What caused so many people to rally behind, in many cases, unfounded accusations that would ruin other peoples lives unjustly? What caused not just a movement but the movement known as McCarthyism? It is historically proven that a simple action can have many complex causes, while a movement can have immeasurable causes underlying its begining and the momentum that keeps it alive. Leaving the little, but not insignificant causes alone, the major causes of McCarthyism were the attitude of the United States toward communism, the sense of superiority within the United States, and McCarthy's own position.

    Read More

  • The American President -a movie review

    578 Words  | 2 Pages

    The media plays a key role in The American President. Throughout the movie the president struggles to keep high approval ratings during primary season. The media has tremendous control of this because they are a major source of information for voters, and they can choose what kind of light to shine on a situation. Although, in this situation it was not exactly the media that attacked the president, it actually was the person running against the president, Donald Rumsfeld. Donald Rumsfeld denounced the president, and Sydney ...

    Read More

More about Good Luck And Good Night Essay

Open Document