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This is a provocative topic, especially in the media. You don’t have to go very far to find some TV, newspaper, or radio pundit complaining about how the mainstream media is biased and sensationalized. And they are correct in one aspect; media in general is biased and sensationalized. (They are also very wrong in another when they claim that there is such a thing as a uniform “mainstream” media. If you are a pundit that has a big enough audience, you are automatically a part of the “mainstream” media and if other people in the “mainstream” media do not agree with your point of view than logically the “mainstream” media is not uniform.But that is beyond the point of this essay.) But it always has been and using five great films from the past I hope to at the very least dispel the notion that there once was a nostalgic “golden age” of honor in the press. I also hope to point out some of the inherent idiosyncrasies of the medium of film and television that tend to stray the news to bias and sensationalism even when the people behind the news have the best of intentions. And maybe just maybe I might say something about human nature.
1940 – His Girl Friday, directed by Howard Hawks
A manager of a newspaper learns that his ex-wife and ex-star reporter is engaged to be married to an insurance salesman. So over the course of the day he pulls out all of the stops (legal and illegal) to get her to stay on for one more story in an attempt to break up the engagement and get back his love, and just as important, his best employee. The character of the big newspaperman was rampant in early cinema. They were either adventurous crusaders or dirty sensationalist manipulators or both (Citizen Kane?). Walter Burns is his name in this movie (played by Cary Grant) and he is the epitome of the latter. Whatever he is doing in this story, it sure isn’t ethical journalism. Witnesses are goaded, conclusions are jumped to, and lying and scheming is usual business. When revealed, more lying and scheming comes follows, just in louder shouts and with less shame. In fact, at several parts, in order to delay the departure of the couple, Walter Burns, goes so far as to frame the insurance salesman for several crimes and thrown in jail. Then he kidnaps his mother. Really.
The big newspaper story the movie centers around the imminent execution of a cop killer. The newspaper takes the cop killers side and plays the angle that the killer was insane at the time and that the politicians are ignoring that fact because the cop was a “colored” man and they are trying to capture the “colored” vote. (It is always a sad thing when you watch great old movies and something racist casually pops up.) Was the guy really crazy? Well, that’s debatable. The point of course is that the newspaperman cares less about the story than using the story to further newspaper circulation and get back his girl. It’s all a means to an end to him, and he couldn’t care less if people are getting run roughshod over while it happens. Walter Burns is a big strong confident man that talks super fast and lives his job. He does not have time for pauses and self-reflection. Tomorrow’s paper needs to be done by tonight and it has to be better than every other paper in town.
What makes this movie a great movie is that his ex-fiancé can match the big newspaperman, line for line, and snarky remark for snarky remark. The rapid-fire dialogue in, “His Girl Friday,” is perhaps the fastest ever seen in any movie made then and probably since. (At least I haven’t seen a movie with faster dialogue.) Generally speaking, a page of dialogue in a screenplay represents about a minute of screen time. Reports from “His Girl Friday,” had them fitting four pages in a minute. It is a rather incredible thing to watch. Here is the entire movie, FOR FREE!
1951 – Ace in the Hole, directed by Billy Wilder
We tend to share a glorified memory of the 1950s built on lots of nostalgic movies made in the 1970s and 1980s, but watching the movies actually made in that decade make me wonder whether it was actually one of the worst decades in our history. You cannot match even today the cynicism and bleakness of an average 1950s movie, the golden age of hard heartless men and loveless untrustworthy women. Everyone smoked and drank nonstop and, let’s face it, was probably suffering from some intense untreated PTSD leftover from two huge wars mixed in with a very present threat of a potential nuclear war.
One of the more cynical movies is “Ace in the Hole,” a story about the disgraced journalist Chuck Tatum, (played by Kirk Douglas) fresh fired from several big papers out east and finding himself in a remote town in New Mexico working for the local rag. He hates it there and hopes for that one big story that will rehabilitate his career and get him the hell out of the dump. Then one day, it happens. There is a cave-in at the local mine and a man is trapped inside and can’t get out. An Ace in the Hole! Chuck Tatum knows exactly how to milk that story for everything it is worth. The only problem is that if the local excavation team does the job properly, the trapped man will be out in two days. Not good. Chuck needs at least a week of fresh sensational newspaper reel to turn the story into a full-fledged media circus. So he convinces the local politicians and police to have the excavation team drill from the top (which will take a week) instead of coming in from the mouth of the cave itself. How does he do this? He promises to right glowing reviews of the politicians and police about their response to the emergency. The man’s wife is in on it too. She hates the small town as well and thinks her husband is a loser for choosing to live there. She cheers up only when tourists start filling up her restaurant as they stop by to gawk at the mine. She starts charging them admission tickets in order for them to park their cars on her lawn. Meanwhile, in the mine, the trapped man slowly starts dying.
Pundits get “outraged” today by simple video edits of telephone calls or YouTube videos that take things out of context. But this sort of thing has been happening forever and it is a curious thing to get angry at what seems to be a natural occurrence. It should be remembered that until very recently in history, newspapers or any other type of media did not even attempt to pretend to be objective. It is said that the entire Spanish-American War of 1898 can arguably be credited to lies perpetrated by the newspapers of William Randolph Hearst. Since this is not a new thing the question of why reporters enrich their stories with unreliable evidence or fabricate them entirely should not be asked without the obvious counterpoint, why are they so continually successful? As Chuck Tatum says, “Bad news sells best, because good news is no news.” Once again, here is the full movie, courtesy of YouTube.
1976 – Network, directed by Sidney Lumet
Howard Beale, the widowed, fatherless, hard-drinking anchor of the UBS news hour has just been fired for low ratings. Since, as he says on air during his next to last night on the program, that he has nothing left going for him in his life, he plans to commit suicide during the next show. “You ought to get a hell of a rating out of that. 50 Share, Easy.” Predictably, the ratings skyrocket, but not before Beale is fired for calling life bullshit (instead of apologizing as he was supposed to do) on his final night. Behind the scenes though is a producer named Diana Christensen, who lobbies to bring Howard Beale back on air to yell bullshit some more because obviously it is what the people want to hear. Think of the ratings! “For goddsakes Diana, we’re talking about putting a manifestly irresponsible man on National Television,” says the head of the news department. She nods. Exactly.
This is the heavyweight movie in this series of films. Network, is one of the best written screenplays ever, the best evidence being that almost every actor that spoke the words ended up with an Oscar nomination (a record five total) with three winning (Peter Finch for Best Actor, Faye Dunaway for Best Actress, and Beatrice Strait for Best Supporting Actress). The influence of “Network,” can be seen in many news networks today and in weirdly the absolute wrong way it should have been. Howard Beale, the mad prophet of the airwaves, is almost a venerated figure nowadays, with plenty of pundits (Glenn Beck comes to mind) actually seeming to draw on him for inspiration, and at least one recent politician from New York who used his catch-phrase, “I’m Mad as Hell and I’m not Going to Take it Anymore!!!” in a campaign. What must be remembered though is that Howard Beale is quite literally an insane person and he is not on air because suddenly the news division at UBC cares about the “truth,” or “telling it like it is,” but because they have realized they can draw a gigantic profit by putting on a show with almost no production value (basically a guy shouting bullshit with no actual investigative reporting) and selling it to an audience, angry because of a depressed economy and a high crime rate, that simply wanted somebody to articulate its anger.
At the same time, and this I must admit, Howard Beale is almost impossible to take one’s eyes off. He is an unforgettable character with several memorable passionate speeches (Finch won a Best Actor Oscar for what is essentially a supporting role). The sophisticated amongst us will tend to look down upon the sensationalized portion of our media. We will belittle the TMZ’s, the Reality TV shows, and the Angry Talking Heads on the 24-hour networks, but this overlooks the fact that these shows are sometimes genuinely entertaining (not informative, but entertaining). Here’s a good example. Take a morning and listen to AM Radio, Rush Limbaugh, why not? He is after all, one of the best. Notice how he talks with as much fervor and passion during his advertising segments as he does when he talks about politics or the news. This should tell you something about the show. The fact that he is always so provocative no matter what the subject is should be seen as having less to do with his actual feelings than what can be said is a professional style. Words spoken are generally more exciting when spoken with righteous indignation, and his job is to be exciting, not so much to inform. It is okay to enjoy these shows, just as long as you aren't actually relying on them to be informed. No, you should not be watching Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show," for news value. It isn't news. It's entertainment. Perhaps someday I will write an essay on how one can tell which they are watching at any given time.
1987 – Broadcast News, directed by James L.L. Brooks
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Admittedly, this is more of a story about people than a satire on the news (there is a love triangle), but what concerns us is the news. There are several things I would like to point out. First of all, the news is a deadline driven business. At the same time is an art form. So it follows that no matter how prepared everyone is, everything is still always rushed, because a news piece can always be made better with the time gained from good preparation. (See clip below of Joan Cusack running through the newsroom to make a deadline with her famous huge 80s hair.) The profession is exhausting and should only be considered by workaholics. Secondly, and here is the tragic thing. It does not matter how hard you work or how well the writing is, or how informative the report is, if it cannot be presented well. The success of Tom Grunick does not come from any scheming of his, but because he is likable. Whereas Aaron Altman fails even though he knows everything and can write anything because he does not like people, and in turn, is not liked by them. When Aaron finally gets the chance to anchor the news one night, he writes a very good monologue about a very important event. Unfortunately he starts sweating profusely on the air. Nobody in the audience even noticed the story. All they saw was a guy sweating a lot. In essence, you cannot present any story whatsoever on the news if you cannot make a good first impression. You need flash without distractions first. Substance comes later. Hopefully you can find a really good-looking person to anchor your newsroom who has the latter. This is presented persuasively in this movie by Oscar nominated screenplay and three Oscar nominated performances (Holly Hunter, Albert Brooks, and William Hurt). It is also a very funny movie and probably the most enjoyable of the five here.
2007 – The Fifth Season of “The Wire,” created by David Simon
The Fifth Season of “The Wire,” is commonly known as the disappointing anti-climax to what “some people” say (and by that I mean me) is the best thing ever shot with camera. Anti-climax? Sure. But, disappointing? Not so much. To say that would be to glean over what exactly the makers were trying to say about the first four seasons. That would be: if we know what the problem is, why can’t we solve it? Enter the press room of the now defunct Baltimore Sun, facing cutbacks and low morale. It has on staff a couple of producers that are more interested in finding a better job at a better newspaper instead of making the newspaper that they are at competent and functional and a young reporter that is sensationalizing his stories instead of putting in the effort to do real journalism. The ultimate irony: every great story being told, all the important issues, all the fantastic characters in the series are completely missed by the newspaper as they chase a fictional serial killer of homeless people down in hopes of scoring a Pulitzer Prize. I can’t show you any of “The Wire” here on YouTube nor can I really ask you in good conscience to watch an entire TV series in a single article. But here is the creator, David Simon, speaking before Congress about the future of newspapers and his disdain for bloggers. It should be the least interesting part of this article, but probably, by far, the most informative.
I will see you in the dystopic future, where I am sure we will continue to have the same neverending problem with the media.
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