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 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
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