Facts, truth and bad journalists in the movies

Abstract

Scholars have called for cultural analyses of the press that are more attuned to journalists’ self-image as disciples of facts and truth while also critically examining the contradictions within that self-image. Popular representations of journalism such as motion pictures are one fruitful site of inquiry. This article studies American movies’ depictions of ‘bad journalists’, characters who in many ways contradict the image of upstanding professionalism that the press tries to promote. Although real-life journalists over the years have often objected to such portrayals, ‘bad journalist’ characters still have helped shore up the press’s preferred self-image, either by seeing through lies and pretense to the truth or by paying the price for not telling the truth.

Film Portrayals of Foreign Correspondents

“…The next most favorite genres were war/combat (30 percent) and romance (30 percent). While there were significantly more comedies and romance movies in the 1930s, confirming Ehrlich's (2006) thesis about the ''screwball'' era of happyending romantic comedies, war and drama movies were fairly equally distributed between the two periods, as shown in the crosstabs in Table 1.…”

“…Movies of the 1930s often verged on popular propaganda, as it happened in Everything Happens at Night (1939), Espionage Agent (1939), Foreign Correspondent (1940, Arise, My Love (1940), andConfirm or Deny (1941). This would become even more pronounced, as Ehrlich (2006) notes, after Pearl Harbor, when Hollywood studios worked closely with the government to boost the war effort. The post-Vietnam pictures, on the other hand, reflected a growing emphasis on an adversarial relationship with officials and on conscientious professionalism within journalism to report facts.…”

“…We dropped the hero/villain variable from the analysis because none of the foreign correspondents depicted in the movies studied are villains, which in itself is telling about the image of foreign correspondents, especially since the result goes contrary to Ehrlich's (2006) findings about journalists in general. But the nature of heroism is different over the two periods.…”

“…Either way, Hollywood reproduced ''myths in which the press is at the heart of things and always makes a difference'' (Ehrlich, 2004, p. 1). In a recent study, Ehrlich (2006) has shown that heroic portrayals of journalists in general are rare. Far more common are depictions implying that journalists are social misfits who twist the truth into scandal and lack a conscience.…”

Evaluating journalism through popular culture: HBO’sThe Newsroomand public reflections on the state of the news media

“…Accordingly, for many, the 'image' of the journalist and 'hopes' for journalism, both now and historically, are shaped through its representation in film and television (Ehrlich, 2006;Schudson, 1992). Be it All the President's Men, Good Night and Good Luck, or The Wire, popular culture has provided a consistent staple of 'good' journalists that closely resemble an intelligent, straighttalking, principled, intrepid, independent, unwavering 'masculine' archetype that goes after a story at any cost, sacrificing personal gain and often safety in the pursuit of a greater (societal) truth (Saltzman, 2002).…”