Still the greatest Halloween movie ever made.

BREAKING: sources say NARA has forced out Dr. Todd Arrington, the federal director of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum, after he declined to allow the Trump administration to remove a sword from the library for a gift to King Charles lastcampaign.substack.com/p/exclusive-...

Edward R. Murrow played a crucial and, I think, under-appreciated role in building the Churchill myth in America, precisely because he recognized Churchill’s symbolic importance as a defender of democracy.

Back in February, for its 75th anniversary, I wrote a piece about Joe McCarthy’s “Enemies Within” speech and how the terribly flawed press coverage of it – even more than what he may or may not have actually said – catapulted him to national prominence and power: time.com/7213586/medi...

Barbara Gomes Marques is documentary filmmaker who risks imminent deportation to Brazil. Loud voices in the film community could be especially helpful right now.

This is the first in a series of episodes this season (starting with Josh, next with @abradschwartz.bsky.social) about Media/News/Politics that I am nicknaming "Enter the Murrowverse". The History of NPR/PBS this week, "Good Night and Good Luck" in November, "Network" in ???

Couldn’t agree more! That’s why I helped the @umich.edu Library put all the fan mail from Orson Welles’s WAR OF THE WORLDS broadcast online. I can say from experience it’s a great tool for getting students thinking about media literacy, misinformation, “fake news,” etc… quod.lib.umich.edu/w/wow/

Age yourself with a film you saw in a cinema as a kid

Oxford, East Lansing, now Grand Blanc—and that’s just the ones near my hometown. Grieving for the victims of this shooting, and all the others—and outraged that our country won’t stop this preventable horror.

During the 50s Red Scare, coordinated pressure on advertisers was one of the most effective tactics for forcing people off the air. Because, as Erik Barnouw’s history of broadcasting points out, it gave companies an economic excuse to act. But such pressure can get people back *on* the air, too…

Just got out of my IMAX screening. Pleased to report that APOLLO 13 is still a perfect movie. (And even after 30 years, I still, somehow, have the phrase “Main Bus B Undervolt” seared in my memory…)

Exposition doesn’t get much smarter than the first few minutes of APOLLO 13, when Kevin Bacon delivers crucial information on how the spacecraft works with a beer bottle, a pint glass, and an innuendo

Network executive: “For God's sake, Diana, we're talking about putting a manifestly irresponsible man on national television!” Diana:

Good thing @historyonfilm.bsky.social and I are preparing a podcast episode on just this very film!

The following is a statement from the WGA on ABC’s decision to pull ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’

“The right of dissent—or, if you prefer, the right to be wrong—is surely fundamental to the existence of a democratic society. “That’s the right that went first in every nation that stumbled down the trail toward totalitarianism.” —Edward R. Murrow, 1947

QUIZ SHOW is one of the great, under-appreciated gems, which somehow makes you *feel* what it was like when lying on TV still counted as a major scandal. Robert Redford made too many great films to list here, but this one’s never been more relevant. #RIP

Me, the media historian, when “Philo Farnsworth” pops up at the #Enmys:

You should, on the other hand, always read (and re-read) Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language.” www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-f...

Fifty-four years ago, the president of CBS risked going to jail for contempt of Congress in order to protect the news division from government interference.

Back when I co-edited my high school paper, we were going to run a story on drug use that featured a bar graph with joints for the bars. The administration would not allow us to publish it. Which gave me the opportunity to reply, “I guess that’s one toke over the line.” RIP, Tom Shipley

[Me, writing this Murrow book furiously while the ending keeps changing in real time…]

“The networks say we are only conduits, pipes—they might certainly better say: sewers. We carry whatever anyone wants to transmit to the country, for a charge, and that is the extent of our responsibility. But that is power—for they have it—without assuming responsibility.” —Edward R. Murrow, 1955

Ten years before his death, Orson Welles gave a speech to the AFI about how he felt compelled to make art—his own unique, personal movies—even though it left him always struggling for money. Films made some other way, he said, “might have been better. But certainly they wouldn’t have been mine.”

It’s always a treat to meet a writer whose work you admire—especially when you get to thank him for citing your research in his! So glad I got to see @vermontgmg.bsky.social on his swing through Michigan yesterday.

Co-writing AMERICAN EXPERIENCE’s “War of the Worlds” is what started my career, and I’ll never forget how WGBH welcomed me onto the team (even though I was just a 23-year old kid who wrote an honors thesis on the subject) This is a loss for viewers, for the creators, and for all American historians

AMERICAN EXPERIENCE gave me my first writing job, right out of college, and I learned so much from seeing both their professionalism and the impact their films have on audiences. What a loss to have that off the air (for now). www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/a...

In case you needed another reason to get excited for season 2, we recorded a fantastic talk today with @abradschwartz.bsky.social on Murrow, McCarthy, and "Good Night and Good Luck"!

As Harry Truman said, “The only new thing in the world is the history you don’t know.”

Writing (when it’s character based) and acting are more similar processes than I think people realize, but I never fully appreciated that until I read this quote from Philip Seymour Hoffman (which describes my workday better than anything I’ve ever seen).

My first thought was THE UNTOUCHABLES, because it inspired me to co-write two books about Eliot Ness with Max Allan Collins. But seeing DICK TRACY as a kid got me interested in Ness (the original inspiration for that character) and led me to meet and befriend Max, so that probably takes the prize.

I read this little book in high school and still think about it all the time.

We’ve lost a legend. Lovell’s leadership during the “successful failure” of Apollo 13 will never be forgotten. But throw in his role on Apollo 8 and his two Gemini missions, and you have one of the most impressive records in the history of space exploration. RIP

Because irony is dead, that “broadcasting station in North Carolina”—to which they tried to demote the Voice of America director, before firing him—is named for Edward R. Murrow.

Everybody knows Mary Shelley invented modern science fiction with FRANKENSTEIN. But did you know that, exactly 200 years ago, she was writing one of the first dystopian novels, THE LAST MAN, about a plague outbreak in the 21st century? Now you do! theconversation.com/guide-to-the...

@joshshepperd.bsky.social gives a measured but clear-eyed assessment of what’a happening to American public media: “I would call it the most dire situation I’ve ever seen for any public media system in the West, including Europe.”

A few years ago, I would have said an Eliot Ness museum… But fortunately I don’t have to create one, because now it exists, in Pennsylvania, run by a friend of mine: youtu.be/FBszSHLEudU?...

A screenplay that somehow only gets better by the day:

I grew up on these streets.

I had the same feeling, reading up on how Edward R. Murrow spent his pre-journalism career helping scholars get out of Nazi Germany. Murrow always described that as the most educational and rewarding experience of his life, and I’d argue it informed every single thing he did as a reporter.

And this is why the work (when you’re trying to do it right) takes so much time:

We’ve lost one of the greats, whose music never fails to put a smile on my face. RIP Tom Lehrer www.youtube.com/watch?v=frAE...

Everyone remembers Joseph Welch attacking Joe McCarthy’s lack of decency, but that moment only happened (on camera) because the Republican Party had already started to split. McCarthy’s probe of the Army forced the GOP to choose between him and Eisenhower. After that, he no longer seemed invincible

I’ve kept a reading list since junior year of high school, and I don’t know how to feel about the fact that I’m currently a little under 50% of this gentleman’s lifetime total. But some of our tastes apparently aligned—especially ANIMAL FARM.

I’m as surprised as anybody that there’s somehow a new WAR OF THE WORLDS movie coming out next week. Good thing @thehistoryguy.bsky.social and I just did a whole podcast about the backstory behind the original alien invasion:

Parents used to panic because they thought kids would play metal records backwards to hear this sort of thing, but apparently ChatGPT will give it to you as a PDF if you only ask.

Thrilled to chat with the great @thehistoryguy.bsky.social about the alien invasion that never happened and how the nightmares of H.G Wells and Orson Welles became today’s reality. I think you’ll enjoy the conversation as much as I did. Check it out: shows.acast.com/dansnowshist... 🗃️

*me and my book project