By Lucy Komisar

“Good Night, and Good Luck,” the smartly-staged story of how news reporter Edward R. Murrow helped bring down the malicious “junior senator from Wisconsin,” Joseph McCarthy, occurred in the early 1950s but could have been set today.

Written by George Clooney and Grant Heslov, directed by David Cromer, it’s about how a powerful political figure targeted people he charged were communists or sympathizers and destroyed their lives. How the country’s politicians stayed silent. How he was abetted by malevolent media figures and their cowardly supporters. And how citizens were smothered into lethargy by TV’s breads and circuses.

Murrow (George Clooney, cool, direct, unemotional) was the chief reporter and host of “See It Now,” a TV investigative series that has never been equaled for its courage. He starts out in testimony asking what is happening to our mass media. They are escapist insulations from reality, making people complacent, used to distract them. (Recognize anything?)

Joe Wershba (Carter Hudson) and Shirley (Ilana Glazer), program staff who are secretly married, talk about a loyalty oath now required to work at the show: “Are you now or have you ever been a member.” Wershba says “Fred [show producer Fred Friendly] (Glenn Fleshler) told me to sign it. If I don’t sign it, they’ll fire me.” Joe would go on to be an investigative reporter at The New York Post under editor James Wechsler (before it lost its way with Murdoch). I worked at The Post in the early 60s when Wershba was there.

One story that is told is the case of Air Force Reserve Lt Milo Radulovic accused because his sister and father “read subversive newspapers.” No witnesses, no accusers named.

HUAC (the House Un-American Activities Committee) sends a file to CBS President William Paley (Paul Gross) accusing staffer Don Hollenbeck (Clark Gregg) who worked at the network for 19 years and runs its “CBS Views The Press” of doing propaganda for communist causes. Hollenbeck asks Murrow for support, but is refused. He commits suicide by gas. A stain on Murrow’s character.

The play, set in 1954, shows real video of McCarthy at his hearings. He charges someone with being a spy in the Pentagon, then suddenly leaves the hearing without providing evidence.

Murrow talks with Paley, tells him, “I can’t accept on every subject there are two equal sides.” No, there is truth. Paley: “I have to go back to Alcoa, who sponsors your show and also happens to have military contracts, and tell them they might be caught in a tough bind because of a beef you had with Joe McCarthy.”

Murrow says, “You guaranteed the corporation would have no influence.” But of course they did and do. Especially the arms merchants who have lots of ready cash. Paley: “Go after Joe Kennedy. We’ll pay for it.”

In between, currying favor with CBS, Murrow interviews innocuous Liberace. Cameraman says, “Good show, Ed.” He scowls.

Then Democratic Senator McClellan at a hearing calls McCarthy evil. Murrow will run the clip. The beginning of McCarthy’s end.

The set is busy with desks and cameras and screens. David Bengali does the video/projections design.

This is a very important play for the political morality issues it raises. Not that I think the bought politicians in Congress will pay attention, but it’s important for the public to understand how corporations and military exercise control.

Alcoa quit “See It Now” as a sponsor in 1955, a year after the seminal broadcasts. And Paley moved the program from half hour midweek to an hour on Sunday afternoon. In one way, it was a boon! It allowed “Harvest of Shame,” the show about migrant workers, most important documentary of the time that changed the country’s view of farm laborers. Not that, in spite of the farmworkers’ movement, it made a major difference.

The play is important for what it reminds audiences, many of whom were too young to see the original TV videos, of the continued immorality corporate-financed media with their McCarthyite let’s kill the Russians and let’s kill the Palestinians on legacy media today.

In the play, a victim commits suicide. Today, victims are disappeared. Think of today’s politicians and media honchos targeting critics of U.S. foreign policy, opposing U.S. weapons to the U.S. proxy war against Russia in Ukraine as “sleeping with Putin” or opposing arms for the US-Israeli Holocaust against Palestinians as “friends of Hamas.”

When the end is not about hurting some individuals but chancing nuclear war or supporting genocide, today’s political and media cowards are even more scary and reprehensible. (Did you notice the depravity of Senator Cory Booker spending 25 (“I am great”) hours talking about political morality and then voting to send weapons to Israel to continue the genocide against Palestinians?)

Not in the play, but notable, Paley in 1972 ordered a cut in a CBS Evening News series on the Watergate scandal based on a complaint by Richard Nixon aide Charles Colson. He also for a time stopped critical analyses of presidential addresses by CBS news commentators. (On the issue of morality, Paley was also a notorious womanizer.)

In the category of glorifying villains of history, the Museum of Television and Radio, which Paley founded/funded in New York City in 1975, was renamed the Paley Center for Media. And in 1984, Arizona State School of Journalism awarded him the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism, a prize which goes routinely to famous and powerful media personalities. (Cronkite was anchor of the network’s late Sunday night news program in the early 50s, but there’s no indication of what role he played in covering McCarthy.)

The corruption of American corporate journalism continues with marked silence from mainstream media’s soi disant reporters.

This just in: “Why Legendary Journalist Edward R. Murrow Still Matters” Friday, April 25, 2025, 4pm, at The Paley Museum, Curator: Ron Simon. “The new Broadway play Good Night, and Good Luck, starring George Clooney, underscores Murrow’s commitment to journalistic integrity and courage to speak truth to power.”

Will Simon talk about Paley caviling to corporate power and killing Murrow’s program? Stay tuned.

“Good Night, and Good Luck.”  Written by George Clooney and Grant Heslov, directed by David Cromer. Winter Garden Theatre, 1634 Broadway, New York. Runtime 100min. Tickets: lottery, rush, standing room. Opened April 3, 2025, closes June 8, 2025.