Edward R. Murrow
Fall from favor

Murrow's reporting brought him into repeated conflicts with CBS, especially its chairman William Paley, which Friendly summarized in his book Due to Circumstances Beyond our Control. See It Now ended entirely in the summer of 1958 after a clash in Paley's office. Murrow had complained to Paley he could not continue doing the show if the network repeatedly provided (without consulting Murrow) equal time to subjects who felt wronged by the program.

According to Friendly, Murrow asked Paley if he was going to destroy See It Now, into which the CBS chief executive had invested so much. Paley replied that he did not want a constant stomach ache every time Murrow covered a controversial subject.

See It Now ' s final broadcast, "Watch on the Ruhr " (covering postwar Germany), aired July 7, 1958. Three months later, on October 15, 1958, in a speech before the Radio and Television News Directors Association in Chicago, Murrow blasted TV's emphasis on entertainment and commercialism at the expense of public interest in his "wires and lights" speech:

During the daily peak viewing periods, television in the main insulates us from the realities of the world in which we live. If this state of affairs continues, we may alter an advertising slogan to read: Look now, pay later.

The harsh tone of the Chicago speech seriously damaged Murrow's friendship with Paley, who felt Murrow was biting the hand that fed him. Before his death, Friendly said that the RTNDA (now Radio Television Digital News Association) address did more than the McCarthy show to break the relationship between the CBS boss and his most respected journalist.

Another contributing element to Murrow's career decline was the rise of a new crop of television journalists. Walter Cronkite's arrival at CBS in 1950 marked the beginning of a major rivalry which continued until Murrow resigned from the network in 1961. Murrow held a grudge dating back to 1944, when Cronkite turned down his offer to head the CBS Moscow bureau. With the Murrow Boys dominating the newsroom, Cronkite felt like an outsider soon after joining the network. Over time, as Murrow's career seemed on the decline and Cronkite's on the rise, the two found it increasingly difficult to work together. Cronkite's demeanor was similar to reporters Murrow had hired; the difference being that Murrow viewed the Murrow Boys as satellites rather than potential rivals, as Cronkite seemed to be.

Throughout the 1950s the two got into heated arguments stoked in part by their professional rivalry. At a dinner party hosted by Bill Downs at his home in Bethesda, Cronkite and Murrow argued over the role of sponsors, which Cronkite accepted as necessary and said "paid the rent." Murrow, who had long despised sponsors despite also relying on them, responded angrily. In another instance, an argument devolved into a "duel" in which the two drunkenly took a pair of antique dueling pistols and pretended to shoot at each other. Despite this, Cronkite went on to have a long career as an anchor at CBS.

After the end of See It Now, Murrow was invited by New York's Democratic Party to run for the Senate. Paley was enthusiastic and encouraged him to do it. Harry Truman advised Murrow that his choice was between being the junior senator from New York or being Edward R. Murrow, beloved broadcast journalist, and hero to millions. He listened to Truman.

After contributing to the first episode of the documentary series CBS Reports, Murrow, increasingly under physical stress due to his conflicts and frustration with CBS, took a sabbatical from summer 1959 to mid-1960, though he continued to work on CBS Reports and Small World during this period. Friendly, executive producer of CBS Reports, wanted the network to allow Murrow to again be his co-producer after the sabbatical, but he was eventually turned down.

Murrow's last major TV milestone was reporting and narrating the CBS Reports installment Harvest of Shame, a report on the plight of migrant farmworkers in the United States. Directed by Friendly and produced by David Lowe, it ran in November 1960, just after Thanksgiving.
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