Journalism and the movies

It has been difficult, after a lifetime of fighting deadlines in newspaper offices across Texas, to sit on the sidelines for the past year and a half and watch the most concerted attack on freedom of the press in the history of the republic.

Trump seeks to destroy the public’s faith in the independent news media in order to consolidate power and to escape accountability for the many sins he has committed in a lifetime of deceit, gluttonous excess and business malfeasance.

It’s still unclear whether he will be successful in his quest. The news media – newspapers and broadcast news networks in particular – have never been weaker and more ill-equipped to counter the assault.

Trump’s efforts to destroy a free press come at a time when the traditional checks and balances on presidential power are being erased – both by a craven dereliction of duty by a subservient legislative branch and by a concerted effort by the Trump regime to stack the judicial branch with far-right zealots.

I believe, because I must, that Trump will fail in his nefarious goal. I believe it when I see the poll numbers, when I see the number of people who marched Saturday in cities across the country.

And I believe it when I see something that happened on Sunday, a small thing really, not terribly significant in the grand scheme of things, but important perhaps as a small promise that the good guys will ultimately carry the day.

I went to see The Post, an excellent film about the Washington Post’s decision to join The New York Times in defying a Nixon administration order not to publish the Pentagon Papers in 1971.

It’s a rousing story of journalistic derring-do – mostly true, for the saga of the Pentagon Papers case is full of intrigue, secrecy and ballsy, in-your-face reporting. Director Steven Spielberg drives home its over-arching message, which couldn’t be more relevant today: A free press serves the governed, not the governors.

As the lights came on in the theater, the credits were greeted by applause from the audience. Applause. In a movie theater in Northeast Tarrant County, one of the most conservative parts of a very conservative state.

To quote Buffalo Springfield, “There’s something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear.”

As for the movie, it’s pure joy and immediately makes my list of the best journalism movies ever made, as I expected it would.

Tom Hanks is extraordinary as Ben Bradlee. How an actor as famous as he is can disappear into a character amazes me. I wondered how he would stack up to Jason Robards’ characterization of Bradlee in All the President’s Men. Robards won an Oscar, and Hanks’ work certainly is Oscar-worthy. Wouldn’t it be something if two separate actors won Oscars for portraying the same historical figure?

Meanwhile, Meryl Streep as Katharine Graham is sublime. The moment when she decides to risk everything to publish the papers – against the advice of the gaggle of chattering men advisers who surround her – still gives me goosebumps. She’s that good.

I’m not sure why, but over the years, journalism has served as the inspiration for a number of excellent movies. Perhaps it’s because journalists so often are in conflict with established authority or because their work exposes official malfeasance and human chicanery.

Regardless of the reason, top-flight directors and A-list actors always have been drawn to movies with journalism themes or with journalism backdrops.

My list of favorites appears below. My journo friends no doubt have their own.

There are no wrong answers here. Let the debate begin!

Top 10 Journalism Movies

The Post (2018) – Yes, I know. The New York Times is the real hero of the Pentagon Papers case. Neil Sheehan of the Times got the first copy of the papers and the Times published the first story. The Post was a Johnny-come-lately in the case, albeit an important one. So why is the Post the hero of this movie? Simple. Katharine Graham is a fascinating character. Both newspapers risked a lot by publishing the Pentagon Papers, but hers was perhaps the more difficult decision. Streep’s work here undoubtedly will win her another Academy Award nomination. It’s also Spielberg at his best.

Spotlight (2015)– A brilliantly told story of the Boston Globe’s Pulitzer-winning series about child molestation in the Catholic diocese in Boston. It captures perfectly the culture of the newsroom and the mindset of reporters and editors at a major metro paper in the days before the implosion of the newspaper industry. Spotlight, which won a Best Film Oscar, also portrays better than any movie ever has the methodical, time-consuming and mostly routine process of a major newspaper project. The familiarity of the place and the people brought tears to my eyes at the end.  This movie, along with The Post, illustrates why a free press is essential.

All the President’s Men (1976) – The movie and the 1974 book upon which it is based inspired an entire generation of youngsters to get into journalism. And no wonder. At the time, it was the most realistic portrayal ever of the newspaper industry, and director Alan Pakula and screenwriter William Goldman went to great lengths to insure authenticity, including recreating an exact duplicate of the Post newsroom. The scene of Dustin Hoffman, as Carl Bernstein, trying to convince a source to talk to him brought a shiver of recognition. Taking advantage of her instinctive hospitality, he manages to entice her into providing some information but knows he’ll spook her if he takes out his notebook. So he waits until she leaves the room to get coffee, then pulls out his notebook and scribbles furiously.

His Girl Friday (1940)– Director Howard Hawks had the stellar idea of turning the Hildy Johnson character in this adaptation of The Front Page into a female role. Then he offered the part to many of Hollywood’s top actresses. They all turned it down, but Rosalind Russell jumped at the chance and made the role her own. Cary Grant as crafty, ethically ambiguous editor Walter Burns is a delight, and his scenes with Russell crackle with sexual energy. Known for its rapid, overlapping dialogue, this is by far the best of three screen versions of Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur’s romp about Chicago-style journalism in the 1920s.

Deadline USA (1952) – Humphrey Bogart is the fighting editor of a New York newspaper about to be sold to a Murdoch-type publisher and put out of business. He decides to go out with a bang by bringing a ruthless mobster to justice. Much of the movie is well-crafted hokum, of course. But there’s a scene in a bar where reporters from the doomed New York Day gather to mourn their paper with cynicism, dark humor and scathing commentary, just as real reporters would do in such bleak circumstances. In the final scene, Bogart is in the press room, watching the pages with the story being bolted onto the press, when he receives a call from the crime boss ordering him to hold the story. Bogart signals the presses to start, then holds the phone to the roaring machines. “You hear that, baby,” he tells the enraged mobster. “That’s the press. The press. And there’s nothing you can do about it. Nothing.”

Broadcast News (1987) – Holly Hunter is wonderful as the brash and brilliant Washington producer of a major network. William Hurt is the dim-witted but telegenic reporter she takes under her wing. And Albert Brooks is the nebbish super-reporter who knows everybody and knows everything but can’t connect with his TV audience or the girl he loves, Hunter. Key scene: Hunter is having an argument with her boss. Says he: “It must be nice to feel like you’re the smartest person in the room – to feel like you’re always right and everybody else is always wrong.” “No,” she quietly replies. “It’s awful.”

The Paper (1994) – I never worked for a tabloid, but this movie made me wish I had – sort of. The New York Sun – a hybrid of the real-life Daily News and Post – is a crazy place, filled with crazy people. An editor obsessed over his chair. A drunken columnist who packs heat for protection. A fistfight between editors in the press room over front-page headlines. A never-ending parade of the bizarre and the unhinged. The place fairly buzzes with an intensity and energy that grabs you by the lapels and carries you along for the ride of your life. Is director Ron Howard’s newsroom fact or fiction? A bit of both, probably. I know the newsroom depicted in the movie was nothing like the one I worked in. At The Dallas Morning News, decorum and order were paramount and shouting matches were rare and usually resulted in disciplinary action. Still, no movie does a better job of capturing the unique dynamic of a big-city newspaper on deadline – the adrenalin-pumping excitement of chasing stories, the exhilarating rush of getting something no one else has. But alas, newsroom “characters” like those in The Paper are a thing of the past. Too bad.

Ace in the Hole (1951) – Billy Wilder wrote, produced and directed this movie about “fake news” almost 70 years before the phrase was invented. Although the movie was one of Wilder’s few commercial flops, it’s a gem. Kirk Douglas is Chuck Tatum, a former big-city reporter fallen on hard times of his own making – drink, women and an unscrupulous approach to work. Exiled to a small newspaper in New Mexico, Tatum encounters what could be his ticket back to the big time. A relics-hunter has become trapped in an abandoned mine, and efforts to remove him are immediately launched. But Tatum understands the story needs time to develop in intensity and drama if he’s to attract the notice of his former metro bosses. So he engineers complications in the rescue efforts. Instead of the necessary hours, it takes days to reach the trapped man, with predictable results. Thank God I never encountered a Chuck Tatum in my long career, but there was this one guy… Umm, no. That’s a story for another time.

Shattered Glass (2003) – Another movie about a disgraced reporter, this time a real one. Stephen Glass achieved a certain level of celebrity by writing edgy, cutting-edge stories in The New Republic until his editors discovered his stories were too good to be true. In fact, the charming Glass had been making things up for years. The scandal almost destroyed the magazine and everyone connected to the fabulist. Initially, the staff rallies around Glass against the allegations, but that support soon evaporates as they begin to understand the depth of his betrayal and the impact of the damage on them. Hayden Christensen, who plays Glass, is extraordinary. His work here makes up, almost, for his excremental portrayal of Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars saga.

Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) – A movie for our times, if ever there was one. Actor David Strathairn channels journalistic icon Edward Murrow perfectly, right down to the nervous way he takes a drag on his cigarette. George Clooney directed and plays producer Fred Friendly. But he resists the temptation to take a star turn, keeping well in the background and focusing the spotlight on Murrow and other members of his CBS team. Fear is a major character here, the fear that permeated the newsroom in that sad era, when careers were wrecked with heartless abandon by unscrupulous politicians playing to a credulous public. Considering the treacherous landscape, and Joseph McCarthy’s mastery of the process, the decision by Murrow and his team to take on the demagogue is nothing sort of breathtaking.

On the right day, they make the list

Citizen Kane (1941) – Some will be surprised that this movie, which is widely considered one of the best movies ever made, didn’t make my list. Personally, I’ve never been able to warm to it, although it does have a certain majesty about it. Orson Welles was a deeply flawed genius, and if you want to put it on a best-of-all-time list, I won’t argue. Ultimately, however, it’s not a journalism movie at all, but a morality lesson about the corrupting influence of power. OTOH, you can’t deny that at its heart, it’s a crackerjack newspaper tale.

Come Fill the Cup (1951) -- I can’t help but love this movie. When I was a young reporter for the Denton Record-Chronicle, the city editor loaned me the book on which the movie is based. Written by a former Louisiana newspaperman named Harlan Ware, the book is about an alcoholic newspaper man who successfully whips his addiction and resurrects his career. It was the first novel I’d ever read with a newspaperman as a protagonist, and I was completely entranced. Much later, I came across the movie on late-night TV. The opening scene is classic. James Cagney, as the alcoholic reporter, dashes into the newsroom, sits down at a typewriter and quickly bangs out a story about the sole survivor of a plane crash. He hands the story to an editor. The editor reads it and admits it’s the best lead he’s ever read. There’s only one problem. The plane crashed three days ago.

Guilty pleasures

“30” (1959) – With little doubt, this is a stinker. As the best worst movie about journalism ever made, it contains every newspaper cliché in the book. Every one. The script is appalling, and the acting is amateurish, particularly by Jack Webb, who plays the managing editor at his wooden-Indian best. It’s not intentionally funny, but trust me, it’s an immensely entertaining hoot if you’re a journalism junkie, practicing or not. I showed it once at a Society of Professional Journalists soiree in Austin, and it was a smashing success.

The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1955) – This is a British sci-fi treasure. Here’s the set up. A reporter for London’s Daily Express discovers that simultaneous nuclear tests by the U.S. and Russia have thrown the earth out of orbit and sent it hurtling toward the sun. He covers the story as temperatures soar, rivers and lakes dry up, cities empty of people and scientists scurry to find a solution. The movie was filmed with the cooperation of the Daily Express, and many of the scenes were filmed in its Fleet Street building, including the final sequences. When scientists re-enact the nuclear blasts that created the crisis in a desperate bid to reverse the process, reporters gather to await results in a bar across the street from the newspaper office. The camera then travels outside, moving along the deserted streets of an abandoned London. It travels inside the Daily Express building, across the cavernous newsroom, through the empty corridors and finally arrives in the press room. There a pressman waits with mockups of two front pages hanging on either side of him. The camera moves in closer to first one, then the other front page. One screaming headline reads, “EARTH SAVED. Experiment successful.” The other says, “EARTH DOOMED. Experiment fails.” Deadline approaches. Get it?