Edward R. Murrow: Trending quotes

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Edward R. Murrow: 134 quotes4 likes

“To be persuasive, We must be believable,
To be believable, We must be credible,
To be credible, We must be truthful.”

Edward R. Murrow

Speaking as the Director of USIA, in testimony before a Congressional Committee (May 1963) http://pdaa.publicdiplomacy.org/?page_id=6 <br class="br">Context: American traditions and the American ethic require us to be truthful, but the most important reason is that truth is the best propaganda and lies are the worst. To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful. It is as simple as that.

“No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices.”

Edward R. Murrow

CBS television broadcast, on See It Now (7 March 1954)

“Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts.”

Edward R. Murrow

Comments after President John F. Kennedy's inaugural address (20 January 1961).

“The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer.”

Edward R. Murrow

As quoted in Mad about Physics : Braintwisters, Paradoxes, and Curiosities (2001) by Christopher Jargodzki

“Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you're any wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.”

Edward R. Murrow

Variant: Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.

“We used to own our slaves; now we just rent them.”

Edward R. Murrow

Attributed by Murrow to an unnamed farmer in "Harvest of Shame", CBS Reports (24 November 1960)
Misattributed

“He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.”

Edward R. Murrow

On Sir Winston Churchill, in a CBS broadcast (30 November 1954)

“The only thing that counts is the right to know, to speak, to think — that, and the sanctity of the courts. Otherwise it's not America.”

Edward R. Murrow

Speech to his staff (1954)

“During the daily peak viewing periods, television in the main insulates us from the realities of the world in which we live. If this state of affairs continues, we may alter an advertising slogan to read: LOOK NOW AND PAY LATER.
For surely we shall pay for using this most powerful instrument of communication to insulate the citizenry from the hard and demanding realities which must be faced if we are to survive. I mean the word survive literally.”

Edward R. Murrow

RTNDA Convention Speech (1958)

“A satellite has no conscience.”

Edward R. Murrow

On receiving the "Family of Man" Award (1964)

“If we confuse dissent with disloyalty — if we deny the right of the individual to be wrong, unpopular, eccentric or unorthodox — if we deny the essence of racial equality then hundreds of millions in Asia and Africa who are shopping about for a new allegiance will conclude that we are concerned to defend a myth and our present privileged status. Every act that denies or limits the freedom of the individual in this country costs us the … confidence of men and women who aspire to that freedom and independence of which we speak and for which our ancestors fought.”

Edward R. Murrow

Ford Fiftieth Anniversary Show, CBS and NBC (June 1953)

“If we go on as we are, we are protecting the mind of the American public from any real contact with the menacing world that squeezes in upon us. We are engaged in a great experiment to discover whether a free public opinion can devise and direct methods of managing the affairs of the nation. We may fail. But we are handicapping ourselves needlessly.”

Edward R. Murrow

RTNDA Convention Speech (1958)

“We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent. We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.”

Edward R. Murrow

RTNDA Convention Speech (1958)

“There is a mental fear, which provokes others of us to see the images of witches in a neighbor’s yard and stampedes us to burn down this house. And there is a creeping fear of doubt, doubt of what we have been taught, of the validity of so many things we had long since taken for granted to be durable and unchanging. It has become more difficult than ever to distinguish black from white, good from evil, right from wrong.”

Edward R. Murrow

This I Believe (1951)

“The sponsor of an hour's television program is not buying merely the six minutes devoted to commercial message. He is determining, within broad limits, the sum total of the impact of the entire hour. If he always, invariably, reaches for the largest possible audience, then this process of insulation, of escape from reality, will continue to be massively financed, and its apologist will continue to make winsome speeches about giving the public what it wants, or "letting the public decide."”

Edward R. Murrow

RTNDA Convention Speech (1958)

“We are to a large extent an imitative society.”

Edward R. Murrow

RTNDA Convention Speech (1958)

“Good night, and good luck.”

Edward R. Murrow

Sign off line of his radio and TV broadcasts.

“It seems to me that any action that arbitrarily limits the citizen's access to sight, sound and print, upon which opinion can be based, is, in the true sense of the phrase, un-American.”

Edward R. Murrow

In response to the House Un-American Activities Committee&#x27;s ban on radio recording and television cameras from public hearings (1 February 1949), quoted in The New York Times http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9500E1DC173FE03ABC4E53DFB4668382659EDE&amp;legacy=true

“Is it not possible that an unruly head of hair, an infectious smile, eyes that seem remarkable for the depths of their sincerity, a cultivated air of authority, may attract huge television audiences regardless of the violence that may be done to truth or objectivity?”

Edward R. Murrow

As quoted in The Saturday Evening Post (December 1949) http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/wp-content/flbk/Murrow_Sticks_to_the_News/pubData/mobile/index.htm#/1/