Walking up Packard Ave. past Gifford House and the Fletcher School complex, Tufts students might notice the small sign marking the Edward R. Murrow Center for Public Diplomacy - and they probably won't give it a second thought. But contained within that small building is one of Tufts true treasures: possibly the most significant repository of Edward R. Murrow's papers on the planet.
Murrow was the most influential journalist of the mid-20th century, bringing American listeners and viewers on-the-ground reports from London during the Blitz. And, as made famous over the past few months in George Clooney's Oscar-nominated film "Good Night, and Good Luck," he delivered blistering but informed attacks on McCarthyism.
The Center recently acquired a host of new primary material, including a sizeable collection of Murrow's telegrams and articles that was donated by the wife of CBS producer Mark H. Harrington III.
That acquisition will strengthen the Center's already incomparable collection of everything Murrow.
It's absurd that the Murrow Center is, as the Fletcher School's Media Relations Manager Terri Ann Knopf says in today's News article, "one of the best-kept secrets of Tufts."
Tufts should proudly tout its fortunate affiliation with one of the greatest journalists of all time, rather than relegating the Center to mere archive status, especially when the news industry is changing for the worse every day.
The broadcast journalism spectrum doesn't seem to have room for figures such as Murrow anymore.
We have to choose today between screaming heads from either side of the political divide or bland automatons that primarily read the headlines or hand the broadcast off to whatever pre-produced segment is slated next.
You can no longer have an opinion and still be considered objective or even credible. So seems the state of broadcast journalism today. Murrow's unique talent was to merge his natural ability to report the news with his compelling and often demanding political commentary.
Maybe the Internet and the 24-hour news cycle don't allow for journalistic brilliance, maybe worries over political correctness have forced broadcasters to water down their commentary, or maybe the drastic polarization of America's polity has created a vacuum of trust in the media.
No matter what the cause, it's beyond question that the golden age of broadcast journalism has come and gone.
While Murrow certainly had an advantage in being present for the infancy of broadcast journalism, the field has witnessed only a few talents even remotely as fearless or courageous as he was in the more than 40 years since his death in 1965. Even Ted Koppel, the longtime host of "Nightline" and a legend in the world of investigative journalism, has retired.
According to the Museum of Broadcast Communications' Web site, "Murrow frequently used the airwaves to revivify and popularize many democratic ideals such as free speech, citizen participation, the pursuit of truth, and the sanctification of individual liberties and rights, that resulted from a broader liberal discourse in England, France, and the United States."
New York Times TV critic Jack Gould wrote of the legendary Mar. 9, 1954 broadcast in which Murrow challenged Senator McCarthy's methodologies that "last week may be remembered as the week that broadcasting recaptured its soul."
In the Edward R. Murrow Center for Public Diplomacy, Tufts has a matchless opportunity (and duty) to remind the world of a time when TV news was not merely trusted, but admired as a beacon of truth and courage.
Hopefully, if Tufts ever decides to broadcast its existence, the Murrow Center can help broadcast journalism recapture its soul once more.
