Good Night And Good Luck Film Analysis

Good Night, and Good Luck covers the McCarthy era, the severe anti-red period in the 1950’s and takes place within CBS studios. The main character of the film is Edward R. Murrow who reports for CBS news. Upon the events of harsh McCarthyism, Murrow chose to use his public power to challenge senator McCarthy and his strong anti-communist ideology. The reporter argues on behalf of a person in the United states Military who is somehow connected with communist people. In a following broadcast, he makes is clear that the senator is given the opportunity to refute and defend what is being said about him over their airtime. After a week or so, McCarthy responded by discrediting Morrows statements by telling the American people that Murrow has ties to communism himself: that he has worked for Russian organizations and was “engaged in propaganda for Communist causes” twenty years ago.
His reasoning was that the reporting was hurting the people who fund and donate money to the CBS Company. When Murrow does not agree to stop, he is demoted to having just one broadcast a week on Sundays. Murrow ends the film with his speech that Americans have the chance to change, but they must be willing to accept the truth that journalists have to share. He then ends with his iconic statement “Good Night, And Good Luck”. The main issue brought up in the piece is the controversial limitations of journalism and their company’s ability to be “bought”. There, sadly, was no real resolution to this problem. Murrow fought very hard to keep reporting the news honestly, but was forced out of the job he