There’s Good Night, and Good Luck the 2005 film, shot in black and white, and there’s the 2025 Broadway adaptation that recently closed its run and was broadcast live on CNN this past weekend. George Clooney was a significant contributor to each of the versions. Whereas in the film Clooney had several major roles behind the scenes as well as playing Fred Friendly, in the play he portrayed the lead character, fearless CBS journalist Edward R. Murrow.
Watch the powerful film trailer below. Some big names are supporting players: Patricia Clarkson, Frank Langella, Robert Downey Jr, and Jeff Daniels.
Good Night, and Good Luck depicts the real-life conflict in the 1950’s between Murrow (David Strathairn) and liar/bully Senator Joseph McCarthy‘s Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations that sought to root out communists via dishonest methods. But “(t)he movie is not really about the abuses of McCarthy, but about the process by which Murrow and his team eventually brought about his downfall (some would say his self-destruction). It is like a morality play, from which we learn how journalists should behave” (Roger Ebert, rogerebert.com).
How should journalists behave, you ask? While what most of us want from journalism is the truth, fear has long been getting in their way, a phenomenon that is only worsening under the Trump administration.
McCarthyism relied on disinformation tactics, among other pieces of the authoritarian playbook. Disinformation is distinct from misinformation. The American Psychological Association:
- Misinformation: false or inaccurate information—getting the facts wrong.
- Disinformation: false information which is deliberately intended to mislead—intentionally misstating the facts.
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle, noted in his (2005, remember) movie review that “Clooney is suggesting that the fear McCarthy was trading in…is pervasive today; that the spirit of McCarthy, an authoritarianism disguised in patriotic language, lives on; and that TV news is no longer a match for it.”
Marjorie Baumgarten, Austin Chronicle, said the film is “a portrait of how to speak truth to power, journalism’s sacred trust, and a reminder of that obligation.”
If you missed your chance to see the recent telecast of Broadway’s Good Night, and Good Luck, there’s still the movie to stream. Many reviewers of the play, by the way, deemed seeing the film just as worthwhile.
One contemporary update that was made to the play is the hint, at its conclusion, of more timely news events. A screen montage, including such footage as the 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and the more recent and frequently posted Nazi salute by Elon Musk, seemingly served to punctuate the message that journalists need to report things as they actually are.
