See It Now

When Murrow came home he continued working in radio and knew nothing about television. Murrow certainly had no interest in television even saying that he wish it was never invented. Eventually, he was offered the opportunity to host a TV version of Hear It Now, along with producer Fred Friendly, called See It Now.

Never one to sit back and wait for things to happen, Murrow went out to find the stories he wanted to tell. The See It Now team maintained a dedicated camera crew to film on location instead of relying on the companies that filmed the news reels. In another departure from accepted practice, the Murrow/Friendly team refused to rehearse interviews beforehand. Like in radio, Murrow came in and turned television on its collective ear.

The regular American was always essential to Murrow and that is who he wanted to know more about. Plenty of other outlets covered celebrities and politicians, it was the everyday man and woman Murrow wanted the world to know. He also wanted to show the tricks of the trade, the monitors, the cameras, the people behind the scenes. (Just in case you ever get the question in a trivia game, See It Now had the first ever coast-to-coast transmission displaying a picture of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge at the same time.)

In 1951, See It Now started out on Sunday afternoon but soon earned a spot in the CBS Friday night prime time and a sponsor, ALCOA (Aluminum Company of America). In 1951 and 1952, the show covered a disaster drill of a mock bomb attack on New York City, presented a report from Korea at Christmas, and covered the 1952 presidential election. But the biggest news was the current of anticommunist fear running through America.