Not Finally… Subjective Views on Matters Journalistic
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Not finally… Subjective views on matters journalistic Screen test I’ve been researching, teaching and pathway into those debates, with writing about journalism for more the advantage for educators that than two decades. Throughout that they often involve names and faces time I’ve used feature films to familiar to a generation of students illustrate how the journalist is brought up on celebrity culture and represented in popular culture. showbiz gossip. Mention of Jürgen From screwball classics such as His Habermas’s theory of the public Girl Friday to the recent Frost/Nixon, sphere will not always prompt movies have proven an engaging excitement in the lecture theatre. source of knowledge about how we, Talking about Richard Gere’s as members of societies in which roguish columnist in Runaway Bride journalism is highly valued, view will at least get their attention. the media. They present an Want to lead a class in discussion of accumulating documentary record journalistic fraud? Check out of what journalism is, and how it is Shattered Glass, with that guy from perceived. Often they speak to Star Wars (Hayden Christensen) in contemporary debates about the lead role. journalism’s role and status. George Clooney, Angelina Jolie, And debates there always are – Kate Winslet, Meryl Streep, Will heated and high on the public Ferrell, Robert Redford and a host agenda, about ethics, the effects of of other A-list stars have made films competition on news content, about journalism and journalists a changing structures of media significant part of their portfolio. ownership, the impact of the Kevin Macdonald’s forthcoming internet on established practices State Of Play, adapted from the BBC and institutions, the role of the original and starring Russell Crowe, journalist in time of war. Films will expand the list. about journalism are a fruitful As a film lover who is also a ©Brian McNair; DOI: 10.1177/0956474808xxxxxx; [2009/1] 20:1; xx-xx; http://bjr.sagepub.com journalism scholar, I decided to asked, and explain your choice. write a book on the subject of Nearly 100 responses had been journalists on screen, the kind of received by the end of last year. book non-specialists would enjoy I was interested to see, among reading, and which would also be other things, whether journalists’ useful for researchers and students responses to this survey would in the field. Heroes & Villains will be differ substantially from those of published next year, all being well. the academics, and the short answer I chose that title because is no. All the President’s Men features journalists are, among the regularly in journalists’ top fives, professions, uniquely vulnerable to not surprising given its mythical 9 0 0 a kind of cultural schizophrenia. status as representing the very best 2 h c They are perceived to be, and that journalism can be. Academics r a represented as, both sexy and sleazy, also list it, alongside contemporary m 1 . glamorous and grimy, rock-star cool equivalents such as Good Night, and o n 0 and old school reactionary. For Good Luck, suggesting a demand for 2 . l every Good Night, and Good Luck, films that strive to accentuate the o v with its heroic journalists battling democratic importance of w e i v e against injustice and political journalism and the courage of the R m s blackmail, there is a Natural Born journalist. We like it when i l a n r Killers, in which Robert Downey Jr’s filmmakers represent journalists u o J true crime TV presenter is happy to positively, it seems, and that must h s i t i incite murder as long as he can film be good news for the profession. r B it. For every Mighty Heart, Michael That said, only one respondent Winterbottom’s moving study of cited A Mighty Heart in their “best the events surrounding Daniel of ”, for my money one of the most Pearl’s death, there is a Rag Tale, heroic and noble representations of populated by amoral brutes a journalist on screen made in the bingeing on sex, drugs and privacy last decade (and Angelina Jolie’s violation (and that’s just the best performance). women). Journalists value films like The Part of my research was to send Front Page, Broadcast News and The a questionnaire to those with a Paper for their realism and professional interest in how authenticity in capturing the journalists are represented on working environment. Academics, screen: to journalists themselves, with a nod to film studies, mention and also academics. Name your five Citizen Kane a lot, and responses favourite films about journalism, it from overseas list some unfamiliar titles I’m going to have to track journalists and academics, as is down, such as the Turkish Babam ve Alexander Mackendrick’s Sweet Smell Oglum (Father and Son). BJR editor of Success, with its monstrous Bill Hagerty and Steven Barnett at columnist J J Hunsecker. Mary Westminster University bravely list McGuckian’s Rag Tale, released to The Devil Wears Prada, a film that universal derision in 2004, is dares to take fashion journalism nowhere acknowledged as the sharp seriously. And why not? As Steven satire of British red-top journalism observes, the shoes are to die for. that it is. Take heart, Mary. Hardly Of those films that depict anybody liked Sweet Smell of Success journalism negatively, Billy Wilder’s when it first came out either – and 9 what did they know? 0 savage and still resonant satire, Ace 0 2 In the Hole, is regularly cited by both BrianMcNair h c r a m 1 . The writer is Professor of Journalism and Communication at the University of o n 0 Strathclyde. He is the author of News & Journalism In the UK, 5th edition 2 . l (March 2009, Routledge). Heroes & Villains will be published by Edinburgh o v University Press in January 2010. w e i v e R m s i l a n r u o J h s i t i r B .