maly, too: Too Bad We Won't See Another Edward R. Murrow On TV Again

Saturday, March 8, 2014

Too Bad We Won't See Another Edward R. Murrow On TV Again

By RON MALY

I woke up at some ridiculous time, and did something I don't normally do on a Saturday morning.

I turned on the TV--specifically to channel 8, the CBS outlet.

Because it's the weekend, I figured Charlie Rose wouldn't be on the air, and thank goodness he wasn't.

Edward R. Murrow

Hopefully, he was asleep.

He needs all he can get.

Sleep, I mean.

I've written about Charlie before, saying something like it's impossible to see his face because the bags under his eyes are so big that they cover up everything else.

Enough of that.

Frankly, I don't want to make fun of 72-year-old Charlie's face anymore [and I don't want to make fun of 81-year-old Kim Novak's doctored-up face either], so I don't plan to watch the CBS-TV news or re-runs of the ABC-TV Academy Awards show on weekday mornings in the future.

They had the Happy Team [well, one of them tried to giggle and look happy, especially when they interviewed a cook who brought food to the set for everyone] on CBS today, the announcing cast made up of a 30-something woman with perfectly-done hair down to her shoulders and Anthony Mason, an older guy [he's 57] who isn't as old as Charlie Rose, but who is probably waiting for his TV contract to expire so he can sit in a rocking chair for the last 10 or 12 years of his life.

Mason is a veteran of hard news, stuff like business in the U.S. and turmoil in Europe and the mideast, and doesn't look comfortable co-hosting a Saturday morning show on which everybody tries to act giggly and happy.

Mason did his best best to be part of the Happy Team, but it was a struggle.

Anyway, something the Happy Team mentioned was that tomorrow is the 60th anniversary of the See It Now TV show on CBS which pictured announcer Edward R. Murrow being critical of Joe McCarthy, a goofy senator from Wisconsin who was hung up on finding Communists anywhere Communists might be hanging out.

I recall seeing McCarthy on black-and-white TV in the 1950s hammering away at people he thought were Communists.

Joe McCarthy

The guy was sick.

In more ways than one.

And Murrow went after him bigtime on See It Now.

The Murrow-McCarthy confrontations were classic TV.

In those days, we got hard-hitting stuff like that the on the tube. Now we get The Bachelor and Dancing With the Stars and Melissa McCarthy.

Today's viewers don't know what they're missing.

Murrow went after a lot of people and a lot of issues bigtime when he was on CBS-TV.

Murrow eventually became so big that he got in trouble with his network and the sponsors of his show.

I mean that's big.

Neither McCarthy nor Murrow lived long.

McCarthy died in 1957 at the age of 48. Liver disease was the cause. It's no wonder. He was an alcoholic.

I hope this nation or this world never sees another Joe McCarthy.

Murrow was a chain smoker who died of lung cancer in 1965 at 57.

There hasn't been another Edward R. Murrow on TV since, and I doubt there ever will be.

He was one of a kind, a newsman on a mission.

I miss the kind of stuff he used to do.

Too bad we won't see it again.

JOLTIN' JOE GOT IT STARTED

When Ron Maly was a kid in Cedar Rapids, he wanted to enter an essay contest, and he did. He wrote about Joe DiMaggio of the New York Yankees being his favorite baseball player. For finishing second in the contest, Ron won a Louisville Slugger baseball bat autographed by DiMaggio. Ron later wanted to be the first person in his family to attend college, and he was. He earned a degree in political science from the University of Iowa, and did what all political science majors do. He became a sportswriter. He had, after all, covered high school football, basketball and baseball games for the Cedar Rapids Gazette while he worked parttime during his university days. Ron wanted to sit in the press box and write about an Iowa-Minnesota football game, and he did. It happened while he was the sports editor at the Albert Lea [Minn.] Tribune, and the game was at Memorial Stadium in Minneapolis. Ron wanted to cover a World Series, and he did. Also when he was working for the Albert Lea newspaper. Ron wanted to cover Rose Bowls, Sugar Bowls, Orange Bowls, Cotton Bowls, Holiday Bowls, a Freedom Bowl, a Sun Bowl, a Super Bowl and NCAA basketball tournaments, and he did those things after he moved to Des Moines. Ron was a four-time sportswriter of the Year in the state of Iowa [the years were 1977, 1978, 1994 and 1996]. In 2006, he was named a charter member of the University of Iowa's media Wall of Fame in the Kinnick Stadium press box. A photo of the plaque that's displayed in the press box is displayed above this story. Following Ron's retirement from the newspaper business, a publisher asked him if he wanted to write a book about the rich football tradition at the University of Iowa, and he did. The hardback version of "Tales from the Iowa Sidelines" was a best-seller, and so was the revised, softback version. Now he's been asked by his publisher to update the book for a second time. He's in the process of doing that at the present time. Ron considers being asked to update a best-selling book for the second time to be the supreme compliment, considering the Hawkeyes won just four games in the 2012 season. When Ron isn't working on books, he's busy traveling and spending time with his family. Indeed, he attends the athletic, theatrical and musical [both vocal and instrumental] events in which his six grandchildren participate. He also writes about anything that interests him for his many websites. Every chance he gets, Ron proudly wears his America Needs Farmers T-shirt.

The Hawkeyes' Rich Football Tradition, Revisited

I mentioned a while back that I was in the process of updating my Tales from the Iowa Sidelines book. Updating it for the second time. The original hardback edition of Tales from the Iowa Sidelines [pictured at the right] was published in 2003, during the 10-3 season, when coach Kirk Ferentz and his Iowa football team had a 10-3 record that included a 37-17 victory over 15th-ranked Florida in the Outback Bowl and after the Hawkeyes went 11-2 in 2002. That book was a best-seller, so the publishers came to me again in 2005, a season that finished with a breathtaking 30-25 victory over No. 11 Louisiana State in the Capital One Bowl on New Year's Day, 2005. Because buyers had cleaned out the the shelves in the bookstores, the publishers wanted to know if I'd do an updated version of the book. I agreed, The revised, soft-cover edition [pictured at the left] was published in 2005. Warren Holloway, who teamed with quarterback Drew Tate on a miraculous 56-yard touchdown pass to win the Capital One Bowl, was featured on the cover. That book, too, turned into a best-seller, So I had reason to feel very good about my years as a published author. It's not every day that a the original version is a best-seller, and so is the updated version. Then, imagine my surprise when I received an e-mail from a senior editor at the publishing company last fall, wanting wanted to know if I was interested in doing a second updated version of the book. It came at a time when things weren't going well for the Hawkeyes in the 2012 season. They lost their last six games and finished with a 4-8 record. Frankly, the thought of doing a revised edition of the book during a 4-8 season seemed to be a stretch. "Maybe producing a revised edition in a year or two would be a better idea," I told the publishers. "We'd like to do it now," I was told. "Let me think about it," I said. After a few days of thought, I accepted the idea. I talked myself into the idea that this was the supreme compliment--being asked to do a second book update during a 4-8 season showed strong confidence by the publishers in me and in the Hawkeyes' football program. So I got back into the business of interviewing players and coaches again, going to postgame press conferences, weekly press conferences and a scrimmage in West Des Moines. After a press conference in Iowa City, I did a one-on-one interview with coach Kirk Ferentz, and mentioned to him that I was in the process of doing a revised edition of my two best-selling books. I congratulated him on the excellent things he had done for Iowa's football program--all of which contributed to the success of my books. "I think Coach Fry had more to do with it," he told me, bringing up the name of Hayden Fry, his one-time boss at Iowa and a man who brought Iowa's football program back from the dead in the 20th century. That's modest Kirk Ferentz for you. Even though the 2012 season wasn't something Hawkeye coaches, players and fans will recall with any special feeling, Ferentz has a 14-year record of 100-74 at Iowa that includes two 11-victory seasons [2002 smd 2009], two 10-victory seasons [2003 and 2004], plus he's been the Big Ten coach of year in 2002, 2004 and 2009, and national coach of the year in 2002. Indeed, Ferentz has done some wonderful things at Iowa City, and I fully expect his success to continue. I've concluded my writing for the second update of Tales from the Iowa Sidelines, and the senior editor has furnished me with an early look at the book. Not only are the Kirk Ferentz years included in the updated version, but so is the stuff I previously wrote about Howard Jones, Dr. Eddie Anderson, Heisman Trophy winner Nile Kinnick and the 1939 Hawkeye Ironmen, Ronald Reagan, Ozzie Simmons, Ossie Solem, Randy Duncan, Alex Karras and lots of other legends from Iowa's rich football history. I expect the book to be in stores soon. I hope you like it.