Whether it's the rule-defying lifer, the sharp-witted female newshound, or the irascible editor in chief, the journalists portrayed in popular culture have shaped our views of the press and its role in a free society since mass culture arose over a century ago. Drawing on portrayals of journalists in television, film, radio, novels, comics, plays, and other media, this book surveys how popular media have depicted the profession across time. The book's creative use of media artifacts provides thought-provoking forays into such fundamental issues as how pop culture mythologizes and demythologizes key events in journalism history and how it confronts issues of race, gender, and sexual orientation on the job. From Network to The Wire, from Lois Lane to Mikael Blomkvist, the book reveals how portrayals of journalism's relationship to history, professionalism, power, image, and war influence our thinking and the very practice of democracy.

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This introductory chapter discusses the importance of studying the image of the journalist in popular culture. Journalists have been ubiquitous characters in popular culture, and those characters are likely to shape people's impressions of the news media at least as much if not more than the actual press does. Indeed, popular culture is a powerful tool for thinking about what journalism is and should be. The portrayals of journalists illuminate what have been called “the legitimation myths of liberal journalism”—that is, “those shared values and ideas about how news works which, alongside many other myth systems, bind us together as citizens in a democracy.” As such, studying the image of the journalist in popular culture is a provocative and entertaining way of generating insight not only into journalism but into one's self as well.

This chapter looks at how popular culture portrays journalists as being different from everyone else and how it treats differences among journalists themselves. Journalists have been criticized for seeing themselves as being different from everyone else—as somehow standing above and beyond the rest of the citizenry. At the same time, the struggles of journalists who are not male, white, or heterosexual have been well documented, as have the difficulties of the mainstream press in covering gender, race, and sexual orientation. In pop culture, journalism has been portrayed as a particularly difficult career choice for women, who are caught between culture's “gendered” expectations of them as being caring and nurturing and the gendered expectations of journalists as being tough and independent. The difficulties of ethnic minority and LGBT journalists have also been depicted, with some of the most interesting portrayals having been produced by minority and/or gay or lesbian authors or directors.

This chapter discusses how popular culture has portrayed professionalism's key tenets. Apart from questioning whether journalists are true professionals (or even should be professionals) scholars have been particularly interested in the role of “objectivity” in journalism and in the practice and philosophy behind journalism ethics. In popular culture, so-called objective reporting is shown to be deeply problematic and is often implicitly equated to a lack of passion and commitment. Still, professional values do have a place as ethical dilemmas are brought to dramatic life and journalists who violate the public trust suffer the consequences of their misdeeds. Indeed, pop culture reinforces many of the critiques of professionalism—hard, cold reality trumps principles taught in school; reportorial objectivity is difficult to achieve; and ethical choices are fraught with unforeseen consequences.