Catching the Moment

As I've previously discussed on this blog, catching moments and reveling in them are two of my favorite things to do. I even get more excited when others do these two things, be it friends or entertainment big guys. While I've seen plenty of movies that have done this (i.e., The Aviator, North Country, The Hours, etc.), George Clooney and Grant Heslov undoubtedly caught an extraordinary moment in the film Good Night, and Good Luck.

The way in which this movie catches the moment is fabulous, but I think the moment which they chose to catch is both an important one and one that is striking for the modern audience. What they focus on is the moment that Edward R. Murrow chose to target Sen. Joe McCarthy in his television/radio broadcasts. While the historical implications were important enough, I personally think that the moment in journalism/news broadcasting is very important. One of the terms thrown around in the movie when Murrow decides to discuss McCarthy is the term "editorializing" (aka coming down on one side or another in an issue). The shock surrounding Murrow's choice was just as much what he was doing as to whom he was doing it. I think this movie has the potential to make us all think because can any of us remember a time that we saw a news form that was not editorialized?

The fact that Clooney and Heslov so successfully encapsulate both entertainment and history make this movie very good. The additional "thinking material" about how different news is now also seems invaluable to its audience. Do you think CNN, Fox News, etc., have the big guys coming down on them for editorializing as Murrow had the big wigs at CBS coming down on him?