‘Murrow’ Offers Reminder of Sad Decline of TV News : Television: Tonight’s documentary on the legendary newsman’s confrontation with Sen. McCarthy looks back at a time when journalistic values were very different.

The showdown between CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow and Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy has long since become the stuff of folklore. For 40 years, footage has been shown and re-shown of the two “See It Now” TV broadcasts in which the reporter helped to send the witch-hunting senator into decline.

It is a story that cannot be seen too often because of its evocation of a time of national fear. And CBS’ one-hour documentary tonight about the two men, their historic 1954 confrontations and the widespread terror at the time over blacklists and guilt by association is appropriately titled “When America Trembled--Murrow/McCarthy.”

Although the details are hardly new, tonight’s broadcast, hosted by Dan Rather, does attempt to flesh out--too sketchily, alas--the circumstances surrounding the events that eventually pitted the two men against each other as a nation watched, and what happened to Murrow and McCarthy afterward.

The timing of the broadcast is also provocative. While the material is unendingly fascinating, the current sad state of TV news--and the troubles of CBS itself, trying to rebuild the legacy of its past--make the hour a kind of pertinent curiosity.

On the surface, it may seem to some an odd moment to resurrect the tale of the incomparable reporter and the Communist-hunting senator--unless you want to hook it to the 40th anniversary of their showdown and, in addition, tie Murrow’s legendary World War II radio broadcasts from London to last week’s 50th anniversary of D-day.

Rather himself, despite taking shots for various incidents over the years and running into flak in his teaming with his new “CBS Evening News” co-anchor, Connie Chung, has also been critical of the direction of TV coverage. And one wishes that more of this criticism had been overt, rather than implicit, in tonight’s documentary, despite its focus on Murrow and McCarthy.

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There was, after all, a connection. Last September, for instance, in a tough speech to the annual convention of the Radio and Television News Directors Assn., Rather cited Murrow’s contributions in a profound and challenging manner, acknowledging his own shortcomings in measuring up. Referring to TV news, Rather said in that speech:

“How goes the battle? The answer, we know, is: ‘Not very well.’ In too many important ways, we have allowed this great instrument (television), this resource, this weapon for good, to be squandered and cheapened. About this, the best among us hang their heads in embarrassment, even shame. We all should be ashamed of what we have and have not done, measured against what we could do . . . ashamed of many of the things we have allowed our craft, our profession, our life’s work to become.

“Our reputations have been reduced, our credibility cracked, justifiably. This has happened because too often for too long we have answered to the worst, not to the best, within ourselves and within our audience. We are less because of this. Our audience is less, and so is our country.”

He added, “In 1958, Murrow was worried because he saw a trend setting in,” part of which was, Rather said, “going for entertainment values over the values of good journalism.”

Later in the speech, Rather said to the national gathering of news directors, “We’ve all gone Hollywood--we’ve succumbed to the Hollywoodization of the news--because we’re afraid not to. . . . But we can say, ‘No more’. . . . People will watch serious news, well-written and well-produced. The proof--it’s all around, but I’ll give you two examples. Look at ‘Sunday Morning’ and ‘Nightline.’ No glitz, no gossip. Just compelling information.”

And, in another shot, he said that “market survey researchers” report that “your audience wants to see Ken and Barbie. . . . So we give our audience plenty of Ken and Barbie, and we make the minorities we have hired so uncomfortable that they hold back on the perspective, the experience, the intelligence, the talent that they could have offered to make us wiser and stronger.”

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Well, you get the idea. Each night, we see supposedly serious anchors on the news transform themselves into checkered-vest shills by promoting the entertainment series that follow their newscasts, from “The Tonight Show” to “Cheers.”

Watch the Murrow tribute tonight, and you will see courage and conscience--and the flaws as well, including the insipid but popular “Person to Person” series of celebrity interviews, something he frankly didn’t do nearly as well as Barbara Walters.

But the courage overrides all. And one suddenly understands even more why some TV news folks, while paying lip service to Murrow, somehow leave the unspoken impression that he really is a burden to them, that they don’t want to hear anymore about his legacy because it reminds them of what they are not and cannot be because they are simply not allowed to contemplate such heretical thoughts.

There is, of course, always an exception. The late, great Bill Stout was one.

“When America Trembled--Murrow/McCarthy” focuses, of course, on that dreadful period that, as Rather says, was “the McCarthy Era, a time when who you knew could destroy your life.” In television, for instance, major and minor companies--including CBS--panicked shamefully and denied employment to countless people who were the victims of gossip, reports and publications that temporarily wielded incredible power.

Whether intended or not, tonight’s documentary, in addition to reminding us of the declining state of TV news, also is a reminder of the CBS legacy at a most opportune time, even if it really no longer applies to the realities at the network. Let’s just say it’s a nice coincidence of prime-time scheduling.

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For one thing, we now see a CBS News department from which Charles Kuralt recently resigned, from which Bill Moyers left well before him and which rarely uses a resource named Walter Cronkite, although he is briefly on tonight’s program. Murrow was not an anchor, but the news image of the network is considerably different with the team of Rather and Chung on the “CBS Evening News.”

Will tonight’s hour give viewers a more admirable image of CBS than the network has been displaying lately? No doubt. In addition to reminding us of a news division that was deep with names such as Eric Sevareid and Charles Collingwood, it will also recall the days of a much stronger CBS--before a young upstart like the Fox Broadcasting Co. could swipe eight of its stations and its National Football League games, as it recently did.

In the end, Murrow lifts CBS again tonight, at a moment when the network needs a sharp reminder of its roots. From a public relations standpoint, it is a triumph, a momentary lift, regardless of the ratings. But the story is about the past, and CBS can only hold on to that for so long. Even the “CBS Reports” aegis under which tonight’s program appears is seen only rarely nowadays on the network.

Nonetheless, there is Murrow, and you may not be able to watch local TV anchors for a month after seeing the real thing this evening. He still brings a lump to the throat when he intones, “Hello, America. This is Edward Murrow speaking from London.”

* “CBS Reports: When America Trembled--Murrow/McCarthy” airs at 10 tonight on CBS (Channels 2 and 8).