When Edward R. Murrow trained his camera on Sen. Joseph McCarthy in 1954, he did more than expose one man’s abuse of power. He showed America the cost of silence and the danger of personal and national submission to fascist behavior.
By then, McCarthy’s crusade against “un-American activity” had already wrecked thousands of lives. Actors, writers, professors, musicians and civil servants were dragged before committees and accused without evidence. Broadway productions collapsed when directors or playwrights were blacklisted. Professors lost tenure for attending the wrong meeting decades earlier.
Hollywood careers ended overnight. Families uprooted. Reputations left in ashes. The fear was real. Livelihoods were crushed under political abuse.
Murrow broke the spell. His calm, deliberate broadcast reminded Americans that dissent is not disloyalty, and fear cannot be the foundation of freedom.
It was a journalist, not a politician, who said what had to be said. With Murrow’s courage, McCarthy’s grip began to crack.
Seventy years later, another figure uses different tools, but the gut check feels the same. Donald Trump doesn’t chair hearings or wave lists of communists. He works through outlandish lawsuits, executive orders, and the megaphone of a loyal media ecosystem. His goal is the same: intimidate, delegitimize, punish, and silence.
The targets tell the story. Trump moved to defund NPR and PBS, dismissing them as “woke propaganda.” He barred the Associated Press from White House events unless it adopted his preferred terminology. He cheered Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension after political pressure, with FCC Chair Brendan Carr warning Disney, “We can do this the hard way or the easy way.” The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, and CBS’s “60 Minutes” have all been hit with lawsuits meant to beat into submission. Entire media outlets have trimmed coverage, shifted staff, or softened tone to deflect retribution.
This is a strategy: Challenge me, and I will use government power, financial ruin, and public ridicule to silence you.
Unlike McCarthy, Trump doesn’t bother with pretense. He’s recently boasted of directing the Department of Justice to “go after his enemies.” It is a president threatening to criminalize dissent. When government power is aimed at critics, democracy itself is in the crosshairs.
So is Trump our new McCarthy, or are fears overwrought?
America’s institutions are stronger today. Courts are skeptical, audiences fragmented, social media is all over the map.
Kimmel is back on air to most of his audience. The New York Times still publishes. NPR still broadcasts, though under siege.
But censorship isn’t measured only by who survives. It’s measured by hesitation.
How many editors spike stories to avoid lawsuits? How many comedians trim their jokes after seeing what happened to Kimmel? How many reporters hold back because the risk feels too high?
Entire media outlets have already been brought to heel. The chill is the point.
The echo with McCarthy lies not just in tactics, but in casualties. Then it was professors, artists, civil servants. Now it is comedians, journalists, entire news organizations, and the public institutions that bind us. Then the language was “un-American.” Today it’s “fake news” and “enemies of the people.” The words change. The impulse does not.
Murrow ended his famous broadcast with a warning: “We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.”
His sign-off, “Good night, and good luck” wasn’t just another “See you next week” routine. It was a prayer that journalists would stay brave during threatening times, and that citizens would stay awake and act.
In 2025, we need that prayer again. The press is not perfect, and all press has its biases, whatever they may be. But without an open and free press, without full freedom of expression, there is no accountability. And without accountability, democracy dries up and dies for lack of sunlight.
Murrow stood up in 1954. Who will stand up today? Freedom lasts only if we defend it. Good luck to America, that we remember this truth, and prove it with the courage of real First Amendment action.
(As a side note, the movie “Good Night, and Good Luck” is an excellent history lesson and worth a fresh viewing. It’s available on most streaming outlets.)
Gary Horton is chairman of the College of the Canyons Foundation board. His “Full Speed to Port!” has appeared in The Signal since 2006. The opinions expressed in his column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Signal or its editorial board.
