Exposing Joe McCarthy: Television's Finest Hour

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Joseph_McCarthy.jpg

This chapter caught my interest more than the others.  In summary, Joe McCarthy was an American Senator who started the anti-communist movement in the 1950's.  This created an era of "McCarthyism", which was used anytime somebody was accused of being a communist.  McCarthy had gained so much power, he was became almost unstoppable.  His implanted fear of communism in the citizens earned the Republican party dominance in the political scene for the first time in about 20 years.

However, one journalist had seen enough of this fear driven grip over the public.  Edward R Murrow, the award winning broadcast journalist from WWII, decided he had to do something to stop it. The government had gone after a member of the U.S Air Force by the name of Milo Radulovich.  Murrow decided to do a report on Radulovich.  Through this report, he showed that Radulovich was just a regular guy, not a communist. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EdMurrow.jpg

The public took to this report very positively.  As Murrow had hoped, the grip was starting to loosen up.  After that, he decided to "go for the heart of the beast."  His next report went after McCarthy. He decided to show the public the exact methods McCarthy used to determine who was a communist.  He caught McCarthy in a contradiction.  McCarthy had stated that his accusations had nothing to do with political party.  Murrow then showed that McCarthy had said "Those who wear the label 'Democrat' wear it with the stain of historic betrayal- twenty years of treason."  This statement by McCarthy proved that his accusations were not based on facts, but rather he was just accusing Democratic party members to ruin their reputation.  This was seen by about 80-million Americans.  The public was starting to see that the red scare was exactly that, just a scare tactic for the republican party to gain control of the public.