Week of May 20: Saluting One of "Murrow's Boys"; Katie Couric and Mary Hart Back When

By Sylvia Gurinsky

Joseph Wershba was a brave man.

One of the reporters and producers who worked with Edward R. Murrow, Wershba was part of the team responsible for the discrediting of U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy's campaign to weed out Communists during the 1950s.

That campaign started with Wershba's own reporting in 1953 on Murrow's program, "See It Now," about United States Air Force Lt. Milo Radulovich, who was discharged as a security risk because family members were suspected of having Communist sympathies. That was the first in a series of reports that ultimately led to a direct confrontation between Murrow and McCarthy, who went on an episode of "See It Now" and basically did himself in with his words.

Years later, Wershba would produce documentaries - including "Gideon's Trumpet: The Poor Man and the Law," the saga of Clarence Earl Gideon, a poor man in Florida jailed for a felony without legal representation and eventually acquitted. The real story would later be turned into the acclaimed 1980 CBS television movie "Gideon's Trumpet," which starred Henry Fonda.

Wershba was one of the original producers in what has become a CBS institution, "60 Minutes." He stayed there until 1988, working quite a bit with correspondent Morley Safer. Twice, the team won Emmys: In 1971 for a look at the Gulf of Tonkin incident that triggered the Vietnam War, and in 1978 for a profile of Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek.

Here's a link to a tribute by Safer:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504803_162-20063653-10391709.html?tag=contentMain;contentBody


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Katie Couric has given up her anchor chair at CBS, probably for an immediate future as a talk-show host, possibly with ABC.

Whatever her future, her past included time in Miami, at what was then known as WTVJ-Channel 4:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbpHgMvM918

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Meanwhile, Mary Hart is leaving "Entertainment Tonight" after 29 years of enthusiastic coverage of celebrities.

Here's a clip from 1983 - back when there were actually celebrities worth covering:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avOBNaU0fQY&feature=related

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See you next week. Until then, Happy Viewing!