The Edward R. Murrow CollectionThis ReporterThe Best Of "See It Now"The McCarthy YearsHarvest Of Shame

For generations too young to experience his TV and radio broadcasts firsthand, Edward R. Murrow is more myth than man, a sepia-toned Great American from the mothballed pages of history. Docurama's impressive new Edward R. Murrow Collection looks to correct that unfortunate situation with an uneven but often gripping four-disc set that unforgettably documents the legendary reporter's legendary life and work.

The centerpiece of the collection is This Reporter, a stirring feature-length documentary that vividly traces the dramatic path of Murrow's career, from his storied tour of duty chronicling Great Britain's heroic defense during World War II through his pioneering days on early TV, and finally his sad decline. With his leading-man charisma, dark good looks, innate sense of decency, and impeccable working-class credentials, he could have easily passed for the hard-working, hard-living journalist hero of a Sam Fuller movie. A conscientious citizen above all else, Murrow desperately wanted the United States to live up to the sterling, humanitarian values professed by its Constitution and Declaration of Independence, and for TV to fulfill its early utopian promise as "the world's largest classroom." Needless to say, Murrow was disappointed on both counts, and the resulting bitterness cast a hard shadow over the last few years of his journalism career.

Murrow remained a consummate journalist, but what made him such an icon was his overriding sense of purpose, a willingness to take bold stands on major issues. That made him controversial in his day, just as it would in ours. More than just a reporter, Murrow became a moral crusader, confronting injustice and inhumanity wherever he found it. The McCarthy Years documents Murrow's defining moment as a journalist and an activist: his high-stakes and ultimately triumphant war of words with red-baiting bully Joseph McCarthy. Murrow liked to find "the little picture" in big issues, often opting for compelling human-interest stories that vividly dramatized a subject far more effectively, not to mention entertainingly, than a drier or more didactic approach might. Accordingly, when looking for an entry point to attack McCarthyism, Murrow found an irresistible human drama that perfectly illustrated the Kafka-esque insanity of McCarthy's crusade: a smart, articulate Air Force officer run out of the military because Uncle Sam found his sister and father suspicious. CBS offered McCarthy time to defend himself; unsurprisingly, his defense revolved around smearing Murrow as a dirty Commie.

The McCarthy Years is alternately riveting and dry, as is The Best Of "See It Now", a disc that cherry-picks the brightest moments from Murrow's pioneering news program, which ran everything from hard investigative reports to friendly, lively interviews with Grandma Moses, Louis Armstrong, and Carl Sandburg. Harvest Of Shame rounds out the collection with a stirring, muckraking account of the miserable lives of migrant farm workers. At times, Murrow seemed to treat TV as little more than filmed radio, sometimes reading from a script or a relevant newspaper without looking up or addressing the camera for extended periods of time. Still, while some of the set's material is dated, much of it feels stirringly contemporary. For one, Murrow and McCarthy were fighting their own culture war in the mainstream media 50 years before Bush and Kerry, Michael Moore, and Mel Gibson split the nation into Blue and Red. Murrow obviously cared deeply about how history would perceive him. He needn't have worried. Now more than ever, the profession of journalism needs a hero, and The Edward R. Murrow Collection uncovers one. It's just sad and telling that it has to reach back a good half-century to do so.