Just saw George Clooney's Edward R. Murrow biopic, and have to say that I enjoyed it. It's slow going, it's in black-and-white, there's no sex and little romance. No car chases, no exploding fireballs, no shootouts or fistfights. Not too much humor. Just a lot of middle-aged guys reading newspaper articles and talking about Joe McCarthy in TV studios and bars. But it was full of nostalgia for the NYC of my youth. Everything looked more or less as I remember it did as a very young kid. And of course, Clooney plays Fred Friendly, (what did he do to himself?) who lived in Riverdale, where we lived, and whose son went to my private high school. Friendly became president of CBS News after the McCarthy program, promoted by Paley. He quit in the 1960s over the Vietnam war, went on to set up PBS from his perch at the Ford foundation. He hired Jim Lehrer, who is still on the air--the heir to Edward R. Murrow anchor chair for the most trusted newsman in America. So every night at 7, one sees a little of that Murrow style continues.BTW, Murrow was a friend of my Uncle Saul (actually a cousin), a newspaper reporter and editor who ended up heading the CBS affiliate in Seattle. Murrow would visit him when he came home to see his mother.
UPDATE: Not everyone like Clooney's version. My wife sent me this unfavorable review by Slate's Jack Schafer (whom I also got to know, though not person-to-person, during the PBS controversy). As I said, I'm biased...
