Fred Friendly, A Personal View
American journalism lost one of its brightest lights Tuesday, and, in the words of my CBS News colleague Andy Rooney, quote, Â"The American people have lost a best friend they hardly knew.Â"
His name was Fred Friendly, and, first as Edward R. Murrow's partner and producer, he was responsible for much of the best reporting ever doneÂ…much of it on television.
Starting in 1951, Murrow and Friendly produced a program called Â"See It Now.Â" It tackled important subjects, most memorably a report on then-Senator Joseph McCarthy. Powerful, meaningful reports such as this required the utmost in journalistic integrity, standards that are the benchmark for all American journalism to this day.
But they had a sense of adventure and joy, too. On the first Â"See It Now,Â" Murrow and Friendly made it possible for the first time to see America's Atlantic and Pacific Coasts at once. Today the idea seems quaint. Back then, it was nothing short of a miracle. Thanks to this new technology, television, we could embrace our beloved country with our eyes.
Later, Fred Friendly produced Â"CBS Reports,Â" ground-breaking television documentaries including Â"Harvest of Shame,Â" Murrow's legendary report on migrant farm workers.
This reporter worked for Fred Friendly on some of those Â"CBS ReportsÂ" documentaries. His standards were exacting. Sometimes you thought you'd never live up to them. But Fred never doubted. He knew you could do good work and he knew the audience deserved your work.
He became President of CBS News, but resigned in a dispute over the network's decision to broadcast soap operas instead of Congressional hearings on the Vietnam War.
Fred went on to be one of the most influential journalism teachers this country has ever known. In newsrooms and classrooms across America, his students guarantee,every day, that Professor Friendly's lessons will continue to be taught for years.
With his wife, the brilliant Ruth Friendly, Fred produced a series of seminars with policy-makers and press that were often broadcast on PBS. The Friendly Seminars presented hypothetical situations, and then asked their participants to think, to share the agony of their decision-making process and to expose any contradictions between their ideals and their actions.
Fred was an innovator, a leader, a gadfly, a war hero, a champion of the Constitution, and a tough but loving boss. I'll miss Fred Friendly. You should, too.
Dan Rather's daily commentary, Dan Rather Reporting, may be heard daily on the CBS Radio Network.
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