EOTO #4: Journalism Heros

 I have always been fascinated by women in journalism and how they were able to make a name for themselves. Since it was a male dominated profession its extra impressive when a woman was able to break her way into the industry. Marlene Sanders did exactly that. 

Sanders has paved the way for women in broadcast journalism. She is the first network news woman to report from Vietnam, she is the first woman to anchor a  prime-time network newscast, and the first woman to become Vice President of a news division. 

Born on January 10 1931 Sanders originally wanted to be an actress. She went to the Theater on the Sea in Matunuck but didn't make it very far. In New York her acting career went nowhere but she was able to get close with one of the directors Mike Wallace the future producer of 60 minutes. 

In 1955 Sanders tried her luck in the news industry. She worked as an assistant to Ted Yates who was the producer of "Mike Wallace and the News". 

She became an associate producer when Yates gave Wallace a late night television program. She worked for Wallace on his late night show Nightbeats. 

She then started to move her way up and in 1960 became a writer and producer for Westinghouse Broadcasting News program. She then became assistant news director of WNEW radio in New York. 

This is where she started to do what she would become known for. Sanders started producing and writing documentaries which would turn into her specialty father down the road. 

She produced 20 documentaries for the radio station in her short time there. 

Sanders joined ABC in 1964 and covered a wide range of events such as the assignation of President Kennedy, the riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968, and the Vietnam war. 

She is considered the first woman news anchor when she took over one night for Ron Cochran in 1963. He had laryngitis and had to call out. This was the first time audiences saw a woman behind the news desk.

In 1966 Sanders flew to Vietnam and went into the towns to talk to local people. She covered everything about the war and became the first woman reporter to physically go to Vietnam for news.

She even had her own broadcast show for several years called "News With the Woman's Touch". It was a daily five minute afternoon news broadcast where she would briefly talk about the current events at the time. 

In 1970 she started producing documentaries for ABC about the issues occurring during the women's movement. Her most notable documentary is a profile on Sally Jane Priesand who is the first woman to be ordained as a Rabbi in America. 

Sanders was doing so well producing her documentaries that she was promoted in 1976. She became Vice President and director of documentaries at ABC making her the first woman to achieve a role this high up.

Sanders switched from ABC to CBS in 1978 and stayed for 10 years. She was a correspondent and producer for "CBS Reports" which she actually won three Emmys for. She was laid off from CBS in 1989 because of budget cuts. 

She notes this point in news as a time when "the boys are running it again" and only 20 years later says she finally saw a change.

Sanders then went on to become a journalism professor at NYU for 25 years where she taught advanced TV reporting after she retired from the news world. 

A quote that really sums up Sanders career is as follows, "I always said yes when anybody asked me 'Can you do that?' Even if I didn't have a clue what I was supposed to do, I would say, 'Yeah, I can do that."

Sanders completely broke down the wall and allowed for women to enter into the news industry. She was always concerned with the voice women had in the news industry and fought for a change in sexism. She thought the word "newsman" was outdated and rather they be called "news broadcaster" instead to be inclusive of the women breaking into the field. 

In her 1988 book titled "Waiting for Prime Time: The Women of Television News" she discusses the subject and status of women in the news profession. She co-wrote this book with Marcia Rock who is also a professor at NYU and is director of news and documentary at the university.

The book includes her reporting on women's rights protests and marches. She write about her experience and what happened when she was there. 

The two specifically mentioned are the 1970 Betty Friedans National Strike for Equality and The Hand that Rocks the Ballot Box in 1972.

Sanders will always be known as the woman who paved the way and allowed other women to enter the world of news. She was the first of so many things and will forever hold the title for being in the top 100 journalists according to NYU. 

Sanders passed away on July 14 2015 from a long battle with cancer. Her son, who is a writer for the New Yorker, made the announcement on twitter. Sanders has a legacy that will linger on for many years to come. She is too big of a sensation to be forgotten about. 

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/black-feminist-pioneer-dorothy-pitman-hughes-dies-at-84/

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/16/business/media/marlene-sanders-pathbreaking-tv-journalist-dies-at-84.html

http://www.shesbeautifulwhenshesangry.com/marlene-sanders

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/marlene-sanders-television-journalist-dies-at-84/2015/07/16/af9eea2c-2bce-11e5-a250-42bd812efc09_story.html

https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-marlene-sanders-20150715-story.html

https://www.veteranfeministsofamerica.org/legacy/Marlene_Sanders.htm

"Good Night and Good Luck"

"Good Night and Good Luck" directed by George Clooney raised a lot of questions about the relationship between the government and the press. In the movie, we see the effects of McCarthyism and how it changed the face of America for almost a decade. When the movie came out in 2005 it was as relevant as it is today. 

McCarthyism, also known as the Red Scare, in simple terms was publicizing accusations of a person who was thought to be a communist. 

Senator Joseph McCarthy was the main figure enforcing these accusations and telling people what signs to look for in order to see if a person was a communist. 

The movie dives into how McCarthy was effecting the lives of people by having a specific list of qualities to look for. We also get to see how Edward "Ed" Murrow was able to expose and take him down.

Murrow was a journalist and television and radio figure who worked for CBS. He started making a name for himself when he had a radio show where he talked about WWII and shared very detailed reports. 

His show See It Now was what eventually led to the censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy. He thought McCarthy shouldn't be able to intimidate Americans without someone challenging his views. 

The first show that lead to this feud was the episode were Murrow explained the story of Milo Radulovich, who was a lieutenant for the US Air Force.  He was dismissed from the Air Force for having communist ideologies, yet there was no evidence to prove that. Murrow said on his show, "was it hearsay, rumor, gossip, slander, or was it hard ascertainable fact that could be backed by credible witnesses? We do not know."

The senator didn't like these conversations Murrow was having and wanted to put an end to it fast. Murrow then learned that he was on McCarthy's attack list after he had been doing the show for some time. He had obscure reasons to why he thought Murrow was a communist and used it against him and publicized it. 

Murrow decided to fire back and started reporting on McCarthy's tactics he was using to determine if a person was a communist. He did this without condemning or slandering him which made it hard for the government to shut the show down. 

The two went back and forth until eventually there was nothing else for McCarthy to say and he had to back off. The public opinion changed against McCarthy to which he demanded a chance to respond to Murrow to give an explanation.

The movie showcases the relationship between the government and the press at the time. One scene in the movie showed two military soldiers in the office of the President of CBS. They were giving him a warning if he kept Murrow show running because he was in a way insulting the US government. 

Using this intimidation method is a form of censoring the press and scaring them into not reporting the topics the government wanted to keep a secret. 

The government had control over the media and Murrow was going against that. He was a threat in the governments eyes and they wanted to shut him down, since he would keep bringing up the subject of the senator and McCarthyism. 

Journalists were scared during this time. They were being told left and right what was okay to print and what wasn't. They were getting threats from the government as well as from regular viewers. 

This era of McCarthyism made it impossible to print the truth about the government and expose the higher ups and tell the people what was really going on. 

This isn't the first time the government has tried to censor the press and it is in fact still happening today as we speak. 

The biggest example today is the war in Ukraine. It's very rare to see an article updating Americans about the progress being made in Ukraine. Journalists and reporters aren't even in Ukraine to give information back because the government doesn't want anyone to know what they are actually doing over there. 

The New York Times says there is a new Red Scare happening right now. The ongoing conflict between America and China is very similar to the Red Scare era. There is a fear running across America that China is going to take over. It's the same idea McCathy had and that same fear that something foreign is going to take over the US. 

The split between political parties can also fall under this idea of McCarthyism. Republicans and Democrats don't like each other. You can get called out on social media and essentially "canceled" if you have different opinions on the matter. 

It's a toxic thing but this is how America is at the moment. There are very strong supporters for both Trump and Biden and it can get very scary if you disagree with either side. You can get called names and have your words twisted. People really have to watch what they say nowadays because it's so easy to offend someone. 

It's really hard to voice your opinion without having people leave hate comments or threaten you because of the beliefs you have. This is awfully close to what was going on during the Red Scare and how they were seeing how patriotic people were. If you didn't have an American flag on your front porch that was a sign that you could be a communist. 

It's the same exact thing today. 

Journalists and reporters have stopped trying to expose the government and instead have succumbed to their threats and promises. People like Murrow will be silenced or thrown in jail just because of the fact that they want to expose the governments secrets. 

It's scary how much we don't know about the government and what they are doing behind closed doors. The next generation of reporters have to follow after Murrow and find out what's really going on with our country. 

https://billofrightsinstitute.org/activities/edward-r-murrow-handout-a-narrative

https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2015/mar/30/ggod-night-and-good-luck-george-clooney-edward-murrow-reel-history

https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Edward_R._Murrow