Good Night and Good Luck

An exciting, and interesting movie that everyone should check out is “Good Night and Good Luck”, directed by George Clooney. In this movie based on a true story, a famous reporter, Edward Murrow, takes on the legendary McCarthy and his campaign against communists. Eventually, Murrow’s bold, and dangerous, actions lead to the downfall of McCarthy, but angers the owner of the television station. This causes Murrow’s program to lose much of its advertising and has him switched to a non-primetime slot.

This shows the viewer the truth of media, that it’s a business ran by politics. Murrow’s campaign was a success, it brought down McCarthy and it received many callers during the program. Why did he lose his advertising than? Because, big businesses did not want to support a person that could possibly connect them to less popular political stances, such as communism. Murrow was a risk, he took on McCarthy successfully, but what other stances would he take? Could the advertisers risk such a thing happening again, just this time without success? No, they preferred to remove support, causing his show, a true public service show, to almost become cancelled.

To me, this sounds a lot like the Michael Phelps situation. He lost his advertisers because they didn’t want to be seen supporting a pothead, despite his success and his smoking having little to do with their products.