Edward R. Murrow
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50 free Edward R. Murrow trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Edward R. Murrow made broadcast journalism matter. Listeners first knew him as the reporter describing the bombing of London on live radio; a decade later he was the television host who took on Senator Joseph McCarthy at the height of the Red Scare. This quiz collects the fun facts behind the legend: the unlikely childhood, the name he dropped, the colleagues he hired and fell out with, the programs he built at CBS, the government job that followed, and the films and songs that keep his story alive. It suits history buffs, journalism students and anyone who has seen him portrayed on screen and wants the real story. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will leave with a few stories worth retelling.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which first name was Edward R. Murrow given at birth, before he swapped it for Edward?
Egbert
Egbert was the name his parents gave him, though friends already called him Ed in his teens. He went by Edward for the rest of his life.
Q 02During the German bombing of London, Edward R. Murrow broadcast live air-raid reports to America from where?
A rooftop
A rooftop put the real sound of anti-aircraft guns on American radios. British officials had resisted at first, fearing a live report could guide German bombers.
Q 03Which 2005 black-and-white film dramatizes Edward R. Murrow's on-air clash with Senator Joseph McCarthy?
Good Night, and Good Luck
Good Night, and Good Luck takes its title from the phrase he used to close his broadcasts. Shot on color film stock, it was converted to black-and-white in post-production.
Q 04Edward R. Murrow was a White House dinner guest of the Roosevelts on the very day of which wartime event?
The Pearl Harbor attack
The Pearl Harbor attack did not cancel his invitation, and Roosevelt told him after dinner that American losses were far heavier than reported. Murrow chose not to broadcast it.
Q 05Which British prime minister offered Edward R. Murrow a top BBC programming job during World War II?
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill offered in 1943 to make the American joint Director-General of the BBC, in charge of programming. Murrow turned the job down.
Q 06Edward R. Murrow, who smoked about three packs a day, was almost never seen without which cigarette brand?
Camel
Camel was the brand always in his hand, on air and off, at a reported 60 to 65 cigarettes a day. He died of lung cancer two days after his 57th birthday.
Q 07Which band's 2003 album Say You Will includes a song picturing Edward R. Murrow turning over in his grave?
Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham wrote it during the O.J. Simpson trial, convinced the newsman would be dismayed by the state of mass media.
Q 08Which president persuaded Edward R. Murrow to leave CBS and run the United States Information Agency?
John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy made the offer in January 1961, and the job also gave the veteran newsman a seat on the National Security Council.
Q 09In 1950 Edward R. Murrow narrated a CBS radio documentary taking a balanced look at which popular mystery?
Flying saucers
Flying saucers got a half-hour hearing in The Case of the Flying Saucer, for which he interviewed both witness Kenneth Arnold and astronomer Donald Menzel.
Q 10Edward R. Murrow was among the first reporters to enter which Nazi concentration camp in April 1945?
Buchenwald
Buchenwald shook him so deeply that he waited three days to broadcast, then told listeners that for most of what he saw he had no words.
Q 11Edward R. Murrow was born in a log cabin at Polecat Creek in which southern US state?
North Carolina
North Carolina was home only for his first few years, until the family moved across the country to the Pacific Northwest. The cabin had no electricity or plumbing.
Q 12Edward R. Murrow's parents, who raised him on a small corn and hay farm, belonged to which religious group?
Quakers
Quakers are known for pacifism, yet Murrow's father had enlisted in the army during the Spanish-American War. The household was remembered as strict in its faith.
Q 13Edward R. Murrow, later famed for his radio delivery, majored in which subject at college?
Speech
Speech was his major: he took 19 courses in it, most from a young teacher who called him her masterpiece. He had arrived intending to study business.
Q 21Edward R. Murrow interviewed celebrities live in their own homes on which CBS show that began in 1953?
Person to Person
Person to Person kept him in a New York studio chair while as many as six cameras followed each guest around the house.
Q 22Which Cold War revolutionary leader was among the guests on Edward R. Murrow's celebrity home-interview show?
Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro shared a guest list with Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, Marlon Brando and anthropologist Margaret Mead. A program typically paired two very different guests.
Q 23Which Brooklyn Dodgers star was the very first guest on Edward R. Murrow's celebrity home-interview show in 1953?
Roy Campanella
Q 14Which school in Pullman, Edward R. Murrow's alma mater, named its college of communication after him?
Washington State University
Washington State University also hosted the ceremony when a 1994 postage stamp made him the first broadcast journalist honored that way.
Q 15Edward R. Murrow gave the first on-the-scene news report of his career in 1938 from which European capital?
Vienna
Vienna was where he went on air at about 2:30 a.m. during the Nazi takeover of Austria, having chartered an entire passenger plane to get there.
Q 16Which reporter, later author of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, was Edward R. Murrow's first hire in Europe?
William L. Shirer
William L. Shirer joined in 1937 and became the first of the Murrow Boys. The friendship broke a decade later, when CBS dropped his Sunday news show.
Q 17Which future CBS anchor turned down Edward R. Murrow's wartime offer to run the network's Moscow bureau?
Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite first said yes, then stayed with the United Press for better pay. Murrow held the grudge for years after the two became CBS colleagues.
Q 18Months after Edward R. Murrow's 1954 See It Now exposé, the US Senate voted to do what to Joseph McCarthy?
Censure him
The Senate voted 67 to 22 to censure him that December, a rare punishment. Colleagues then shunned him, and his later speeches met a near-empty chamber.
Q 19A 1953 See It Now report by Edward R. Murrow defended Milo Radulovich, a reserve lieutenant in which military branch?
The Air Force
The Air Force had branded him a security risk because his father and sister were accused of communist sympathies. After the broadcast it kept him in the service.
Q 20Which 1960 Edward R. Murrow documentary exposed the poverty of America's migrant farmworkers the day after Thanksgiving?
Harvest of Shame
Harvest of Shame was his last CBS documentary. Soon after joining the government he asked the BBC not to show it, worried about America's image, and was refused.
Roy Campanella had just hit a home run to win Game 3 of the World Series against the Yankees. He returned in 1959, by then using a wheelchair after a car accident.
Q 24Which of the wartime Murrow Boys replaced Edward R. Murrow as host of his celebrity interview show in 1959?
Charles Collingwood
Charles Collingwood, who had covered the North African campaign and the liberation of France, hosted the program for its last two years.
Q 25Which producer, later president of CBS News, co-created See It Now with Edward R. Murrow?
Fred W. Friendly
Fred W. Friendly first teamed with him on I Can Hear It Now, a 1948 album of historic recordings that became a surprise hit and led to their radio series.
Q 26Which early director of Edward R. Murrow's See It Now later borrowed its format to create 60 Minutes?
Don Hewitt
Don Hewitt built 60 Minutes with two more See It Now veterans, Palmer Williams and Joe Wershba, carrying its magazine style to a new generation.
Q 27Which company sponsored Edward R. Murrow's See It Now until pulling its advertising from the program in 1955?
Alcoa
Alcoa left after the program investigated a Texas land scandal in an area where the aluminum maker was expanding. Without a regular sponsor, the show lost its weekly slot.
Q 28Which hit quiz show, airing just before See It Now, reportedly made Edward R. Murrow doubt his time slot would last?
The $64,000 Question
The $64,000 Question launched a mid-1950s quiz craze, and he is said to have asked his producer how long they could expect to keep their slot. See It Now lost it in 1955.
Q 29What did Edward R. Murrow offer Senator Joseph McCarthy after criticizing him on See It Now in March 1954?
Airtime to reply
Airtime to reply was the offer, and McCarthy used a full half-hour on April 6 to call his critic a communist sympathizer. The rebuttal only hurt the senator further.
Q 30Which national honor did Edward R. Murrow receive in 1964, the year illness ended his government service?
Medal of Freedom
The Presidential Medal of Freedom came months after he resigned as a federal agency chief. President Johnson had asked him to stay on, but cancer forced him out.