In Murrow’s tradition…
Tim Cuprisin of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel uses the release of the new film “Good Night, and Good Luck” to look at who may be today’s version of Edward R. Murrow….
One of those news personalities is Geraldo Rivera, who reported live from New Orleans for Fox News Channel after Hurricane Katrina struck two months ago. He sees some of the coverage of that disaster as following in the tradition set by Murrow.
“Shep Smith was magnificent,” Rivera said. “Anderson Cooper was also very good.”
Smith is with Fox News, Cooper with CNN. Rivera isn’t alone in citing the cable news anchors for their work from New Orleans, tracing their style back a half-century.
Rivera described them as being in the Murrow mold of “sincere men motivated to use the power of television to right a terrible social disaster that was unfolding right before our eyes.”
There was Cooper on CNN, interviewing Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) on Sept. 1. She had been thanking other senators for their work in the crisis.“Excuse me, senator, I’m sorry for interrupting. I haven’t heard that, because, for the last four days, I’ve been seeing dead bodies in the streets here in Mississippi. And to listen to politicians thanking each other and complimenting each other, you know, I got to tell you, there are a lot of people here who are very upset, and very angry, and very frustrated.”
Consulting Geraldo Rivera for an opinion about who amongst today’s news reporters bears the closest resemblance to Edward R. Murrow is like consulting Tammy Faye Bakker to find out which modern-day religious figure best carries on in the legacy of Mother Teresa.
Comment by tanne — October 30, 2005 @ 10:42 am
Ha! Good one tanne.
Comment by bravesfan — October 30, 2005 @ 11:02 am
I know Geraldo is no paragon of journalism, but he’s a gazillionaire, and doesn’t have to be out there working/reporting. I give him credit for that. And it was also good of him to pay compliments to Anderson Cooper. It is rare to see people praise the competition.
Comment by Missy — October 30, 2005 @ 4:21 pm
BTW, thanks for biting your tongues on the Murrow typo. It was 5:45 am and I goofed it up…
Comment by Spud — October 30, 2005 @ 5:27 pm
Why give credit to people just for being gazllionaires, Missy? Do we rate people now according to how much wealth they have? Does that make Anderson Cooper great too–just because he reports despite being too wealthy to need a job?
Geraldo Rivera is a sob-sister journalist. He has no business whatsoever rating anyone else according to their journalistic integrity on the “Murrow Scale.”
And Spud, well, hey…we’re all human.
Comment by tanne — October 31, 2005 @ 7:54 am
As long as you’re talking about who belongs in which category, Geraldo earned everything he has, Cooper didn’t. But they are one in the same. Cooper just has a better college degree.
Comment by Gregg — October 31, 2005 @ 1:57 pm