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Movies elevate, rather than denigrate, journalism and reporters, author says
Craig
Chamberlain, News Editor
217-333-2894; cdchambe@illinois.edu
6/16/04
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CHAMPAIGN,
Ill. — Are movies to blame for the public’s low opinion
of reporters and journalism? Has the Hollywood portrayal of the news
business grown harsher in recent decades?
Some in the news media think so, says former reporter Matthew Ehrlich,
now a journalism professor at
the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the author of an
engaging new book on the subject.
Some critics among journalists think movies too frequently portray them
in an unflattering light – as hard-drinking, foul-mouthed, scandal-seeking
or lacking conscience, among other things. And they believe that portrayal
has colored the public’s view of real-life journalism.
But Ehrlich went to the source – the movies – and argues
for a very different view in “Journalism in the Movies” (University
of Illinois Press), being published in August.
“I started off, as a lot of journalists do, thinking that movies
primarily are very highly critical of the press, and derogatory, and
tell stories that kind of undermine the press’s place in American
life. But I’ve come around to the notion that, on the whole, they
do the opposite.”
Movies in general, and journalism movies in particular, are almost always
reinforcing ideals or mythic notions about democracy and the role of
the press, Ehrlich found. When movies tell negative stories about the
press, or portray reporters as misfits or villains, their stories are
almost always “morality tales, or cautionary tales, about what
can go wrong when we lose sight of those ideals or myths.”
Journalism movies, Ehrlich said, almost always underscore the notion
that “journalism is important, journalism has a central place
in American life and in democracy, that journalism can and should be
performed well. And if journalism somehow has lost its way – because
of money pressures, sensationalism, television, sleaze – then
one way or another it can find its way again, and journalists can do
the right thing and make a difference.”
To write the book, Ehrlich turned a critical eye on what he calls the
journalism movie genre: movies that focus on reporters and the news
business. His list included such notable films as “The Front Page,”
“His Girl Friday,” “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,”
“Citizen Kane,” “All the President’s Men,”
“Network,” “Broadcast News” and “The Insider.”
A common theme among these movies is their dual message about the world
of journalism, Ehrlich wrote. “They have exalted professional
virtue by telling tales of ethical practitioners versus amoral hacks;
at the same time, they have broadly hinted at how much fun amoral hacks
can be.”
One reason for that dual message is that so many of the scripts were
written by former journalists with their own mixed feelings about the
press – and often a sense of what sells in a screenplay, Ehrlich
wrote.
The first and prime example was “The Front Page,” the 1931
film based on a hit Broadway play, written by former reporters Ben Hecht
and Charles MacArthur, about reporters waiting for an execution in 1920s
Chicago. The reporters in the movie were portrayed as pushy, loud, irritating
and unethical – “not a journalism school portrait of the
press,” Ehrlich noted with a smile. But still they manage to topple
corrupt city officials and save an allegedly innocent man from execution.
“The Front Page” basically established the journalism movie
genre, according to Ehrlich, who devoted a full chapter to it in his
book. The movie’s conventions and themes, many borrowed from earlier
newspaper novels and plays, have been surprisingly persistent in the
movies that have followed, he said.
Journalism movies, for example, often put the lure of the big story
up against the desires and demands of romance, exploring issues of work
versus home that are not easily resolved. The movies, in that regard,
suggest “that journalism is not for normal people – which
is its blessing and its curse,” Ehrlich wrote.
Other common themes are cynicism versus idealism, objectivity versus
subjectivity (or the nature of truth), and public interest versus private
interest. Woven through these themes are Hollywood versions of the outlaw
hero and the official hero, both of which hold sway in the American
imagination, Ehrlich said.
The outlaw journalist “stands for individualism and freedom,”
stands up to power, and is “invulnerable to being snookered or
co-opted,” Ehrlich wrote. “On the other hand, the official
journalist stands for community and progress. He is a pillar who helps
ensure democracy’s proper functioning while embodying white-collar
ideals of public service and social mobility.”
The movies play a role as “purveyors of myth,” Ehrlich wrote,
and they may serve a useful purpose even as they smooth over real-life
conflicts in the process of telling their stories. “We abandon
myths of a free press and a free citizenry at our peril. Movies offer
visions in which the two cannot be separated.”
