In the Future, Everyone will Be Edward R. Murrow for 15 Minutes

“In ‘Daily Show’ Role on 9/11 Bill, Echoes of Murrow,” our pop culture-obsessed self-described paper of record claims:

Did the bill pledging federal funds for the health care of 9/11 responders become law in the waning hours of the 111th Congress only because a comedian took it up as a personal cause?

And does that make that comedian, Jon Stewart — despite all his protestations that what he does has nothing to do with journalism — the modern-day equivalent of Edward R. Murrow?”

Of course — because everyone’s the modern-day equivalent of Edward R. Murrow:

• The Nation magazine, Sept. 2007: “Is Keith Olbermann the Next Edward R. Murrow?”
• New York magazine, June 2008: “Dan Rather Has His Edward R. Murrow Moment.”
• About.com, July 2008: “Edward R. Murrow Smiles on Award-Winner Katie Couric.”
• Frank Rich of the New York Times, September 2008: “In our news culture, [Joy] Behar, a stand-up comic by profession, looms as the new Edward R. Murrow.”
• Mediaite.com, September, 2009: “Glenn Beck, The New Edward R. Murrow Of Fox News: Who’s The Next Target?”
• Business Insider, October 2009: “Is Shep Smith the new Edward R. Murrow of Fox?”
• Current.org, May, 2010: “Writer David Halberstam declared Bill [Moyer] the new Edward R. Murrow” in 1977.

Good night and good luck — and much like Time magazine declared you (yes, you!) to be “Person of the Year” in 2006, maybe you’ll also cop this nearly ubiquitous prize as well.

Update: We interviewed W. Joseph Campbell, the author of Getting It Wrong, the book that busts a century of self-serving journalistic hyperbole, back in October for PJM Political. In a new post on his blog, Campbell describes the Times’ comparison as, needless to say, quite a stretch — and “a double-myth story, a rare article that incorporates two prominent media-driven myths.”