Edward R. Murrow's son and Marvin Kalb compare broadcast coverage of wars 80 years apart

Comparing today's broadcast reporting on the war in Ukraine with Edward R. Murrow's descriptions of World War II scenes, the CBS icon's son Casey said today's version required immediacy. 

Casey Murrow, joined by retired CBS correspondent and Russian scholar Marvin Kalb, said April 5 on a Zoom event that his father's reporting on his visit to the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany was not aired live.

"He needed a day or two to think about what he had seen, Murrow said, adding that he omitted reporting some of the atrocities he had witnessed because they were so gruesome.

Murrow quoted from his dad's broadcast: "I have reported what I saw and heard, but only part of it, for most of it I have no words."

He pronounced himself "fascinated" with the degree with which modern communications technology helps reporting. 

But Kalb said today's reporters are often live and don't have the luxury of time to process "the emotional impact of what they have just seen."

He said there was a closeness that today's technology allows. Asked if a reporter seen on TV helping a woman cross a bridge was giving up journalistic objectivity, Kalb said no.

"Should the reporter have done that? Of course," he said.

The virtual event was co-produced by the Club's History & Heritage and Broadcast/Podcast teams.