ABSTRACT

On a Sunday afternoon in November 1951, the veteran radio journalist Edward R. Murrow aired the fi rst of his news magazines See It Now on television. Termed “a public service of the CBS television network,” the show originated on the radio where it had run as Hear It Now. As with Dragnet, the new weekly public affairs magazine attempted to transfer a successful radio concept to the pictorial world of the screen. In complementing hearing with seeing, Murrow and his producer, Fred W. Friendly, hoped to enhance their approach to journalism and consequently decided to refrain from newsreel and other fi le footage in favor of producing their own visual information. Setting out to prove that television could be used for thoughtful, professional journalism, their show indeed pioneered the genre of news magazines on the broadcast screen.