The Murrow Boys: Pioneers on the Front Lines of Broadcast Journalism

In 1937, as World War II loomed, the task of forming a European news staff to cover the coming conflict for CBS radio fell to Edward R. Murrow. At a time when broadcast news was in its infancy, Murrow trained the talented and daring group of foreign correspondents - ten men and one woman - who came to be known as the Murrow Boys. As the war developed, these young pioneers of radio news had to teach themselves the business, and in the process they invented broadcast journalism. They won the admiration of the nation for their superb, often heroic coverage of the war and the postwar years. But in the decades after World War II the Murrow Boys, and the form of journalism they practiced, fell victim to corporate pressures. By the end of their careers, they would see the Murrow tradition give way to the commercialism and sensationalism associated with broadcast news today. The Murrow Boys - a dramatic narrative that vividly portrays, in addition to Murrow, such giants of journalism as Eric S