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I Simply Cannot Accept That There Are On Every Story Two Equal And Logical Sides To An Argument.

-Edward R. Murrow

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I Simply Cannot Accept

Edward R. Murrow

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I Simply Cannot Accept That There Are On Every Story Two Equal And Logical Sides To An Argument.

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A Thing Of Orchestrated Hell-a Terrible Symphony Of Light And Flame.

I Have Said, And I Believe, That Potentially We Have In This Country A Free Enterprise System Of Radio And Television Which Is Superior To Any Other. But To Achieve Its Promise, It Must Be Both Free And Enterprising. There Is No Suggestion Here That Networks Or Individual Stations Should Operate As Philanthropies. But I Can Find Nothing In The Bill Of Rights Or In The Communications Act Which Says That They Must Increase Their Net Profits Each Year, Lest The Republic Collapse.

Everyone Is A Prisoner Of His Own Experiences. No One Can Eliminate Prejudices - Just Recognize Them.

Just Once In A While, Let Us Exalt The Importance Of Ideas And Information.

Language Is One Of The Greatest Gifts Man Has Devised For Himself. It Ranks, Alongside The Discovery Of Fire And The Wheel, As A Major Influence In Making Modern Man What He Is Today.

No One Can Terrorize A Whole Nation, Unless We Are All His Accomplices.

We Must Not Confuse Dissent With Disloyalty.

Due Process Of Law

The Politician In My Country Seeks Votes, Affection And Respect, In That Order...with Few Notable Exceptions, They Are Simply Men Who Want To Be Loved.

We Cannot Make Good News Out Of Bad Practice.

We Will Not Be Driven By Fear ... If We Remember That We Are Not Descended From Fearful Men.

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Tuberculosis, Starvation, Fatigue, And There Are Many Who Have No Desire To Live.

When The Politicians Complain That Tv Turns The Proceedings Into A Circus, It Should Be Made Clear That The Circus Was Already There, And That Tv Has Merely Demonstrated That Not All The Performers Are Well Trained.

I Was Greatly Influenced By One Of My Teachers. She Had A Zeal Not So Much For Perfection As For Steady Betterment-she Demanded Not Excellence So Much As Integrity.

The Wright Brothers' First Flight Was Not Reported In A Single Newspaper Because Every Rookie Reporter Knew What Could And Couldn't Be Done.

Our History Will Be What We Make Of It. If We Go On As We Are, Then History Will Take Its Revenge And Retribution Will Not Limp In Catching Up With Us. So, Just Once In A While Let Us Exhault The Importance Of Ideas And Information.

I Would Like Television To Produce Some Itching Pills Rather Than This Endless Outpouring Of Tranquilizers.

All I Can Hope To Teach My Son Is To Tell The Truth And Fear No Man.

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We Cannot Defend Freedom Abroad By Deserting It At Home.

It Has Always Seemed To Me The Real Art In This Business Is Not So Much Moving Information Or Guidance Or Policy Five Or 10,000 Miles. That Is An Electronic Problem. The Real Art Is To Move It The Last Three Feet In Face To Face Conversation.

The Speed Of Communications Is Wondrous To Behold. It Is Also True That Speed Can Multiply The Distribution Of Information That We Know To Be Untrue.

I Have Always Been On The Side Of The Heretics, Against Those Who Burned Them, Because The Heretics So Often Turned Out To Be Right....dead, But Right.

A Reporter Is Always Concerned With Tomorrow. There's Nothing Tangible Of Yesterday. All I Can Say I've Done Is Agitate The Air Ten Or Fifteen Minutes And Then Boom - It's Gone.

If We Were To Do The Second Coming Of Christ In Color For A Full Hour, There Would Be A Considerable Number Of Stations Which Would Decline To Carry It On The Grounds That A Western Or A Quiz Show Would Be More Profitable.

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The Politician Is Trained In The Art Of Inexactitude. His Words Tend To Be Blunt Or Rounded, Because If They Have A Cutting Edge They May Later Return To Wound Him.

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If Radio News Is To Be Regarded As A Commodity, Only Acceptable When Saleable, Then I Don't Care What You Call It - I Say It Isn't News.

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Your Voice, Amplified To The Degree Where It Reaches From One End Of The Country To The Other, Does Not Confer Upon You Greater Wisdom Than When Your Voice Reached Only From One End Of The Bar To The Other.

It Is Well To Remember That Freedom Through The Press Is The Thing That Comes First. Most Of Us Probably Feel We Couldn't Be Free Without Newspapers, And That Is The Real Reason We Want The Newspapers To Be Free.

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We Must Not Confuse Dissent With Disloyalty. We Must Remember Always That Accusation Is Not Proof And That Conviction Depends Upon Evidence And Due Process Of Law. We Will Not Walk In Fear, One Of Another. We Will Not Be Driven By Fear Into An Age Of Unreason, If We Dig Deep In Our History And Our Doctrine, And Remember That We Are Not Descended From Fearful Men – Not From Men Who Feared To Write, To Speak, To Associate, And To Defend Causes That Were, For The Moment, Unpopular.

We Must Not Confuse Dissent With Disloyalty. When The Loyal Opposition Dies, I Think The Soul Of America Dies With It.

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The Obscure We Always See Sooner Or Later; The Obvious Always Seems To Take A Little Longer.

I Simply Cannot Accept That There Are On Every Story Two Equal And Logical Sides To An Argument.

It Appeared That Most Of The Men And Boys Had Died Of Starvation; They Had Not Been Executed. But The Manner Of Death Seemed Unimportant. Murder Had Been Done At Buchenwald. God Alone Knows How Many Men And Boys Have Died There During The Last Twelve Years.

Language Is The Memory Of Man. Without It He Has No Past, A Paltry Present, And An Empty Future. With It He Can Bring His Dreams To Life.

I Have No Feud, Either With My Employers, Any Sponsors, Or With The Professional Critics Of Radio And Television. But I Am Seized With An Abiding Fear Regarding What These Two Instruments Are Doing To Our Society, Our Culture And Our Heritage.

We Must Not Confuse Dissent With Disloyalty. We Must Remember Always That Accusation Is Not Proof And That Conviction Depends Upon Evidence And Due Process Of Law. We Will Not Walk In Fear, One Of Another.

Fame Is Morally Neutral.

The Best Speakers Know Enough To Be Scared…the Only Difference Between The Pros And The Novices Is That The Pros Have Trained The Butterflies To Fly In Formation.

Most Of Them [american Politicians] Are Men Of Undoubted Charm, Ability, And Incredible Energy, And Yet Too Often They Lack Purpose Or Appetite For Anything Beyond Their Own Careers. With Few Notable Exceptions, They Are Simply Men Who Want To Be Loved.

Difficulty Is The Excuse History Never Accepts.

People Say Conversation Is A Lost Art; How Often I Have Wished It Were.

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To Be Credible We Must Be Truthful.

I Am Frightened By The Imbalance, The Constant Striving To Reach The Largest Possible Audience For Everything; By The Absence Of A Sustained Study Of The State Of The Nation.

I Am Seized With An Abiding Fear Regarding What These Two Instruments Are Doing To Our Society, Our Culture And Our Heritage. Our History Will Be What We Make It. And If There Are Any Historians About Fifty Or A Hundred Years From Now, And There Should Be Preserved The Kinescopes For One Week Of All Three Networks, They Will There Find Recorded In Black And White, Or Color, Evidence Of Decadence, Escapism And Insulation From The Realities Of The World In Which We Live.

Black And White

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