Good Night, and Good Luck With That Hurricane

The Intersection
By Chris Mooney
Mar 7, 2006 10:32 AMNov 5, 2019 10:12 AM

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I watched the Oscars last night, and was rather ticked off when Good Night, and Good Luck got skunked. It was a great film, in my opinion, and carries an extremely important message at the present moment. I was even more annoyed once I found out something else about CBS's Edward R. Murrow: When he wasn't busy taking on Joe McCarthy, he took time out to broadcast from a flight into Hurricane Edna, in 1954. Apparently the broadcast included this deeply memorable quotation:

In the eye of a hurricane, you learn things other than of a scientific nature. You feel the puniness of man and his works. If a true definition of humility is ever written, it might well be written in the eye of a hurricane.

Now that's great journalism. Maybe with an experience like this under his belt, Murrow didn't find Hurricane McCarthy quite so intimidating....

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