Well don't know if commentary on the film would be approrpriate amidst all this talk of jazz, boy how easy it is to get sidetracked. But for my money Ella Fitzgerald was better than Billie Holiday, much better.

As for the film it has the feel of a television broadcast. It's short, to the point, and leaves out a lot of unnecessary details. There's a great cast of actors here, most of which go nearly unused. Jeff Daniels has about two speaking scenes, but I guess everyone wanted a piece of this film. There is humor thankfully, and not just when they poke fun at the now laughable McCarthy.
I love the scene where Murrow says "Fred (George Clooney) and I will pay for the ads".
When the boss replies "Have you talked to Fred about this?"
Murrow responds with "So he won't be able to get any Christmas presents this year".
"He's Jewish"
"He'll be sorry to hear that, he loves Christmas."

Clooney is coming into his own as a director, and I think all that associating with Steven Sohderberg has paid off. This doesn't jumble the narrative around, or really play with editing, but it's well crafted. The whole film is awash in smoke, and I think the effect works, because hell everyone was a chain smoker in the 50's, at least according to movies. Granted you always walk on shaky ground making a black and white film today, because no matter how you look at it, it is a gimmick. This handicap usually makes us much more critical of the films being made. I don't think the film is the best of the year, but it is good, and it does have a great pace to it. If anything is gonna hurt it down the line it'll probably be it's early release date. For some reason award voters can't seem to remember a film that came out before December.