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Biography
American

Edward R. Murrow

1908 — 1965

The defining American broadcast journalist of the twentieth century. Murrow's radio reports from wartime London for CBS brought the reality of the Blitz into American living rooms, and his television programme See It Now helped bring down Senator Joseph McCarthy. His published works — collections of broadcasts, interviews, and the This I Believe series — document the birth of electronic journalism as a moral enterprise.

Past sales0
PeriodModernist
NationalityAmerican
1. Biography

A short life of the author

Edward Roscoe Murrow (1908–1965) was born Egbert Roscoe Murrow in Polecat Creek, North Carolina, and grew up in Washington State. He joined CBS in 1935, and his radio broadcasts from London during the Blitz — beginning with the signature opening “This… is London” — established a new standard for broadcast journalism: vivid, immediate, and morally serious. After the war, his television programme See It Now (1951–1958) helped expose the tactics of Senator Joseph McCarthy in a famous 1954 broadcast that is widely credited with turning public opinion against McCarthyism.

Published Works

Murrow was primarily a broadcaster, not a writer, but his work was collected in book form:

This I Believe (1952, Simon & Schuster) — an anthology drawn from the radio programme of the same name, in which prominent Americans (and later, ordinary citizens) articulated their personal philosophies. Murrow edited and introduced the collection. A second volume followed in 1954.

In Search of Light: The Broadcasts of Edward R. Murrow, 1938–1961 (1967, Knopf) — a posthumous collection edited by Edward Bliss Jr., containing the texts of Murrow’s most important radio and television broadcasts.

Collecting Murrow

First editions of This I Believe (1952, Simon & Schuster) are common but in fine condition with dust jacket bring $50–$150. Signed copies are uncommon — Murrow was not a habitual book-signer. In Search of Light (1967, Knopf) is the more important text for collectors of journalism history. The most valuable Murrow collectibles are broadcast-related ephemera: CBS scripts, correspondence, and photographs from the London years.