The Over-dramatization Of Journalism

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorCollege, Undergraduate July 2001

download word file, 10 pages 0.0

Downloaded 25 times

Hollywood is notorious for over-dramatizing events in any profession. Journalism is no exception. It is actually ironic when you think about it: one segment of the media making another look good, or worse, as it sees fit.

Journalism is notorious for its alleged bias toward one side or the other of the political, financial or social world, and many people complain about it not being fair.

Well, in the movies, fairness is brought to bear on the journalism profession, and sometimes it isn't pretty. The world of the journalist has metamorphosed along with the world of the filmmaker, and they have covered each other ever since they could.

Beat journalists covering Hollywood and entertainment, and movies that depict journalists as main characters continue the back-and-forth relationship that has defined the two media since their relationship was born.

In this paper, I am analyzing the differences not only in the characters that are depicted in movies that cover the world of the journalist, but also the way those journalists are presented to the public.

The four films that I viewed to get a picture of how Hollywood sees journalists cover the spectrum of journalism.

The traditional print media is thoroughly covered through its heyday during the Watergate scandal, when reporters were viewed as a type of hero, in All the President's Men.

Also along the print journalist line is Ron Howard's The Paper, a modern-day drama about real-life in a newsroom, and the difficulties faced by today's newspaper industry. It deals with professional as well as moral issues.

Moving on to today's more visible arena of journalism, the television "talking heads" as I like to call them, I watched Broadcast News. The film details the pitfalls and the ultra-competitive nature of a modern tele-journalist's life.

Finally, I watched He Said, She...