Irony, argument, and reportage in television documentary:See it nowversus senator McCarthy
- 1 August 1989
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Taylor & Francis in Quarterly Journal of Speech
- Vol. 75 (3) , 277-298
- https://doi.org/10.1080/00335638909383878
Abstract
Edward R. Murrow's documentary series See It Now's “Report on Senator McCarthy” is a telecast that stands as one of the most influential documents in American public discourse. It is also one of the least understood. The standard response has been to label the program as “flawed” because it was not “objective.” This essay argues that the text situates itself between the genre of objective news documentary and the genre of public argument through the ironic “use” of objectivity as a fabricated strategy of appeal.Keywords
This publication has 10 references indexed in Scilit:
- Decline of a paradigm? Bias and objectivity in news media studiesCritical Studies in Mass Communication, 1984
- Ideological justificationsQuarterly Journal of Speech, 1984
- Baldwin vs. Edward VIII: A case study inkategoriaandapologiaSouthern Speech Communication Journal, 1984
- Kategoriaandapologia:On their rhetorical criticism as a speech setQuarterly Journal of Speech, 1982
- ‘The Strange Birth ofCBS Reports’ RevisitedHistorical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 1982
- See It Now and Television's Golden Age, 1951‐58The Journal of Popular Culture, 1981
- Will Rogers: Ironist as persuaderSpeech Monographs, 1972
- Objectivity as Strategic Ritual: An Examination of Newsmen's Notions of ObjectivityAmerican Journal of Sociology, 1972
- A Grammar of MotivesPublished by University of California Press ,1969
- The evolution of see it now*Journal of Broadcasting, 1957