Good Night and Good Luck: Never Stay Silent

How far can a journalist go before they risk their career, their life, and their sanity? It is a question that has been hanging in the air of all journalists for centuries. 

Do I write what I know, or do I write what they want to hear? Another question that journalists face everyday. Sometimes what the people deserve to know is not what they expect or want to hear. It also sometimes requires a journalist to risk their safety or career. 

Good Night and Good Luck is a film that tells the tale of journalist Edward R. Murrow, Fred Friendly, and Joseph Wershba. The reporters run a broadcasted night time news show. Murrow is the lead reporter who is featured on the show. The rest of the team works behind the scenes to help him research, interview, and put together the show. 

It comes to their attention that Milo Radulovich, a U.S. Air Force officer, was caught in scandal revolving his family being involved with communism. The journalists realized that the public needed to know about the problem. Upon searching for the documentation, they find out that it was sealed and kept out of the public eye. 

The journalists are warned not only by CBS their broadcast channel producers, but also from outsiders. Murrow decides to go forward with the story. After airing the story the journalists are praised on their discovery and reporting. 

The film shows other examples of the journalists process on reporting factual and newsworthy problems. However, it shows the deep struggle that reporters have when reporting on controversial topics. 

The film explains the struggle that reporters have when they need to report on controversial issues by showing how the journalists were personally attacked, some lost their jobs in the end, and their broadcast show was put on the back burner at CBS. 

This brings us back the question: should a journalists report on what they know or what their audience wants to hear? Sometimes reporting on what they know is the most honest path, but it can put their career and personal life on the line. This is the difficult part of being a journalist. How can you balance your own personal needs with your career needs. You need a job to support you and your family, but you also have to tell the people what they deserve to know. This has always been difficult for journalists to balance, but the film is a great reminder that good journalism is still welcome in the world and a good journalists informs the people about the truth.