RECOMMENDED BOOKS, ARTICLES
AND WEB SITES

Updated: 8-2008

Alphabetized List -- Journalists in Films

FILMS

Ahn, MiHi, Media Alliance board member and media worker, lists her Top 10 Best Movies About the Media in a special MediaFile.

Austin, Caroline Graham, "Pressing Issues: Fictional Women Journalists in American Film," Thesis-Dissertation, 1996. University of Notre Dame Library.

Barris, Alex, Stop the Presses! The Newspaperman in American Films (A.S. Barnes and Co., South Brunswick and New York, 1976.). It's worth seeking out. Specialty book stores may have a used copy and it occasionally surfaces in online auctions.

Baum, Jane,"The Female Journalist in American Film, 1930-1949," 1983. University of Rochester.

Bilodeau, Bill, "Portrayals of Journalists in Academy Award-Nominated Films, 1927-1993: A Qualitative Analysis," Thesis-Dissertation, 1994. University of South Florida.

Bowden, Mark, “When the Front Page Meets the Big Screen,” The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 293, No. 2, March 2004, p. 146 (5 pgs, 3016 words): “Hollywood is not a reliable moral arbiter of anything, so it’s not surprising that when it holds a mirror up to journalism, Shattered Glass, is the result." Bowden, who is a national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, writes: “Given how poorly journalists usually fare in opinion polls (ranking somewhere near tax collectors), and how plainly their excesses figure in history and in daily life, it is remarkable what a staunch ally the profession seems to have in Hollywood. The reporter may be even more of a celluloid staple than the private detective.” The article is mostly a personal analysis of Absence of Malice and All the President’s Men in relationship to Shattered Glass. It includes a summary of films about journalism and what they have meant to the author.

Brennen, Bonnie S., From Headline Shooter to Picture Snatcher, the construction of photojournalists in American Film, 1928-1939. Brennen is chair of the department of journalism at Temple University's School of Communications and Theater. Her research project focuses on the construction of photojournalists in 20 American films, in which photojournalists and cameramen appear as central characters, produced during the late 1920s and 1930s. Also Brennen, Bonnie, Sweat not melodrama: Reading the structure of feeling in All the President's Men, Brennen was associate professor, Missouri School of Journalism when this essay was written. It suggests that the most famous chronicle of this political scandal codifies an ideology of journalism that has framed an understanding of the role of the press in the United States and Western Europe since the 1970s. Copyright 2003 by SAGE Publications. Also Malice in Wonderland: Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons in Hollywood by Bonnie Brennen, Temple University. Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper were powerful, unconventional women who ruled Hollywood at a time when women were still considered second-class citizens. Thriving amid glamour and wealth, these gossip columnists, with a readership of about 75 million, could make or break the career of an aspiring actor, writer, or director.

Brucker, Barbara A., "The Journalist as Popular Hero or 'Up in the Sky, It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Clark Kent," Thesis-Dissertation, 1980. . Bowling Green State University.

Cinemateca Portuguesa, "Jornalismo e cinema," Lisboa Expresso: Cinemateca Portuguesa, 1993. Yale University Library. Indiana Unviersity Library. Boston Public Library.

Courson, Maxwell Taylor, The Newspaper Movies: An Analysis of the Rise and Decline of the News Gatherer as a Hero in American Motion Pictures, 1900-1974: a Dissertation submitted to the Graduate Division of the University of Hawaii in partial Fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in American Studies, August, 1976. It's available from UMI Dissertation Express, Order No. 7702805.

Court-TV's 15 Most Memorable Movie Journalists lists its favorite compelling cinematic newshounds.

Detroit Free Press offers a nicely designed Web site on journalism movies. It is an attractive introduction to the subject.

Dr. Ink at Poynter'org offers a list of media movies compiled by David Shedden, the Poynter librarian.

Dunne, John Gregory, Monster: Living Off the Big Screen (Vintage Books paper edition, 1998) gives the backstage story on how he and his wife, Joan Didion, adapted Up Close and Personal from the Jessica Savitch story.

Ehlers, Wibke, With Pad and Pencil: Old Stereotypes in a New Form? A comparison of the Image of the Journalist in the Movies from 1930-1949 and 1990-2004, thesis submitted by Wibke Ehlers, 2006, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Mass Communication in the University of Canterbury. The thesis aims to provide an insight into the stereotypical imagery of journalists on the screen and its changes in popular culture, namely in film.

Ehrlich, Matthew C., Journalism in the Movies (University of Illinois Press), is an excellent summary suitable for class use. For more information, see an Article-Review on the book: "Journalism through the camera's eye: Book looks at how Hollywood shapes our views of the press." Ehrlich, associate professor at the University of Illinois Department of Journalism, has studied and written about journalism movies for 13 years and has been an invaluable resource to the IJPC. His excellent writings on the subject include "Journalism in Movies," Critical Studies in Mass Communication, Vol. 14, 1997, pp. 267-281, a critical overview of the genre; "Thinking Critically about Journalism Through Popular Culture," Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, Vol. 50, No. 4, 1996, pp.35-51, a documentation of a class on the subject taught by Ehrlich, and "The Romance of Hildy Johnson: The Journalist as Mythic Hero in American Cinema," Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 12, 1991, pp. 89-104.

Ehrlich, Matthew C., Facts, Truth and Bad Journalists in the Movies in Journalism, Vol. 7, No. 4, 501-519 (2006) © Sage Publications 2006. Scholars have called for cultural analyses of the press that are more attuned to journalists’ self-image as disciples of facts and truth while also critically examining the contradictions within that self-image. Popular representations of journalism such as motion pictures are one fruitful site of inquiry. This article studies American movies’ depictions of ‘bad journalists’, characters who in many ways contradict the image of upstanding professionalism that the press tries to promote. Although real-life journalists over the years have often objected to such portrayals, ‘bad journalist’ characters still have helped shore up the press’s preferred self-image, either by seeing through lies and pretense to the truth or by paying the price for not telling the truth.

Ehrlich, Matthew C., Hollywood and the Journalistic Truthtelling, Associate Professor of Journalism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This article was published in the Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy, 19(2), 2005: 519-539. Ehrlich's book Journalism in the Movies (2004) was published by the University of Illinois Press. The article looks at what has been called the paramount principle of journalism -- truthtelling -- as it is depicted in a movie about a notorious real-life case of journalistic deception: Shattered Glass, the story of Stephen Glass who in 1998 was fired for fabricating more than two dozen stories for the New Republic magazine.

Galician, Mary-Lou, The Return of the Sob Sister in "Superman Returns": Lois Lane and the Fight for Truth and Justice, 2008. Galician, a faculty member at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication.

Garelik, Glenn, "Stop the Presses: Movies Blast Media. Viewers Cheer" is about movie portrayals of journalists that reflect changes in the news media industry. New York Times, Jan. 31, 1993.

Gersh, Debra, "Stereotyping Journalists: Whether in Movies from the 1930s or the 1980s, newspeople are usually portrayed as rude, divorced, hard-drinking, cigarette-smoking misfits." Editor & Publisher, Oct. 5, 1991.

Ghiglione, Loren,The American Journalist: Paradox of the Press (Library of Congress, Washington, DC, 1990), written for a Library of Congress exhibit on the image of the journalist. Also, The American Journalist: Fiction Versus Fact, an essay by Loren Ghiglione, Dean of the Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University. ©American Antiquarian Society, 1991.

Ghiglione, Loren and Joe Saltzman, Fact or Fiction: Hollywood Looks at the News, an essay by Loren Ghiglione, Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University, and Joe Saltzman, Director of the IJPC and Associate Dean, USC Annenberg School for Communication -- © Loren Ghiglione/Joe Saltzman 2002.

Gosetti, Giorgio, Jean-Michel Frodon, Alain Bergala, "Print the Legend: Cinema and Journalism," Paris, Cahiers du cinema. Locarno. Festival Internazationale del film del Locarno, 2004. Buffalo State College Library has a copy.

Green, Norma, The Front Page on Film as Case Study of American Journalism Mythology in Motion, is an excellent Ph.D. dissertation on the subject, Mass Media at Michigan State University, Fall, 1993. The University Microfilm Order No. is 9418000. Also, Norma Green's "Press Dress: The Beige Brigade of Movie Journalists Outdoors," in Beyond the Stars, edited by Paul Loukides and Linda K. Fuller, pp. 65-76 (Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1990).

Good, Howard, coordinator of the journalism program at the State University of New York at New Paltz, Outcasts: The Image of Journalists in Contemporary Film (1989); Girl Reporter: Gender, Journalism and Movies (1998), and The Drunken Journalist: The Biography of a Film Stereotype. They are available from Scarecrow Press. (www.scarecrowpress.com). Good's latest book, written with Michael J. Dillon, professor of communications at Duquesne University, is Media Ethics Goes to the Movies (Praeger Publishers, CT, 2002).

Haberman, Clyde, "A Version of My Job, Made for TV" (Television Portrayals of Journalists). The New York Times, Oct. 7, 2000.

Hanson, Christopher, "Where Have All the Heroes Gone?" (Journalists are no longer portrayed as Heroes). Columbia Journalism Review, March-April, 1996.

Harvey, James, Romantic Comedy in Hollywood, from Lubitsch to Sturges (Da Capo Press, 1998 paper edition) includes material on screwball newspaper films.

Herbig, Arthur W. IV and Kelly Parker, Mediated Dialogue: HBO'S Live From Baghdad was presented at the WSCA Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico in February, 2004. The writers are master’s students at Saint Louis University. The paper takes a look at the film that focuses on CNN’s media revolution and the sudden impact of 24-hour news reporting from the Persian Gulf War. The movie examines the roles media play in how the public understands and interprets broadcast news. This paper examines media roles in encouraging and mediating dialogue since media criticism often neglects dialogue as one of its components. In doing so, the authors examine Live from Baghdad to determine what it says about public dialogue. .

Johnson, Malcolm, "When the News is Bad for Women" in The Age, Melbourne, Australia, June 10, 2002

Kael, Pauline,"Raising Kane," 1971, in The Citizen Kane Book (Limelight Edition, 1984. Pp. 3 to 84.) offers Kael's observations on the journalist in film in her essay on what many consider the greatest American film ever made.

Langman, Larry, The Media in the Movies: A Catalog of American Journalism Films, 1900-1996 (McFarland & Company, 1998) is eclipsed by Ness' book, but it offers another comprehensive view of the image of the journalist in American films.

Leonard, Thomas C.,News for All: America's Coming-Of-Age with the Press (Oxford University Press, 1995) includes a chapter about journalism movies.

Mahon, Bill, "Portrayal of Journalists in Movies." Editor & Publisher, Oct. 1, 1994.

Martin, Jeremy, "No Cheering for the Press Box: The Stereotypes of Sports Journalists in Film," California State University, Fresno, Department of Mass Communication and Journalism, Thesis-Dissertation, 2004.

McCarthy, Carol Maria, "Idiots, Scoundrels and Screwballs: The Image of Journalists in Popular American Film," Thesis-Dissertation, 1991, University of Maryland, College Park.

McDaniel, Kyle Ross, "Reviewing the Image of the Photojournalist in Film: How Ethical Dilemmas Shape Stereotypes of the On-Screen Press Photographer in Motion Pictures from 1954 to 2006," a thesis presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School at the University of Missouri-Columbia, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts, August 2007.

McKenzie, Charles E., "The Reel World: A Study of Cinematic Journalists and What They Might Teach Audiences About Journalism," Thesis-Dissertation. 2001. University of South Florida Library.

Ness, Richard R., From Headline Hunter to Superman: A Journalism Filmography is by far the best book yet written on the journalist in film. Published in October 1997, it is a superb guide to more than 2,100 feature films dealing with journalism, the definitive reference book on the image of the journalist in film. It is available from Scarecrow Press (www.scarecrowpress.com).

Niblock, Sarah, Movie Journalists: Hello Hollywood, Brunel University, London in the British Journalism Review, Vol.18, No. 1 69-75 (2007). Journalists on film have for decades offered fantasy, fun and escapism to millions, but most of the movies have emerged from Hollywood. And that could be changing now that three new high-profile British-led or inspired productions are in the pipeline.

Pittman, Casey, In the Movies, Journalists Are No Longer Heroes -- Just Like Everywhere Else. A Large Majority of the American Public Feels The Press No Longer Deals Fairly With Issues, Observations, a student publication of the Lemke Journalism Department at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

Robards, Brooks, "Newshounds and Sob Sisters: The Journalist Goes to Hollywood," in Beyond the Stars: Stock Characters in American Popular Film (by Paul Loukides and Linda K. Fuller, Bowling Green State University Popular Press, Bowling Green, Ohio, 1990, pp. 131-145) is a well-done, if brief, survey.

Rowe, Chip, "Hacks on Film" discusses portrayals of reporters by television and film including filmography of best films about journalism. Washington Journalism Review, November, 1992.

Saltzman, Joe, Frank Capra and the Image of the Journalist in American Film. "The first book of the IJPC project, Frank Capra and the Image of the Journalist in American Film, sets a precedent of excellence in scholarship, writing, and readability, serving academics, students, and film aficionados alike. Academics will find it a valuable resource, especially if teaching a course that examines the image of the journalist, a Capra course, or even a film genres course." Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Spring 2003. Also, Frank Capra and the Image of the Journalist in American Film USC Literary Luncheon Speech, March 27, 2002, Doheny Memorial Library © Joe Saltzman

On the Media from NPR, August 15, 2008. Filmmakers have long been fascinated by the idea of the grizzled reporter chasing a scoop. In the silent era, titles like “The Daring of Diana” and “The Final Extra” treated journalism as adventure – and it’s no different in the modern age. Joe Saltzman, director of the Image of the Journalist in Popular Culture, discusses the movie reporter. Radio broadcast and transcript.

Schindler, Paul has a passion for the subject and his energetic Web site is filled with good humor and insights. .

Sessions, Carl, "Film Dour" is about journalism portrayed in motion pictures. American Journalism Review, January, 2000, pg 56.

Slovick, Matt, Journalists in the Movies and All The President's Men in the Washingrton Post.

Spaulding, Stacy L. and Maurine H. Beasley, Crime, Romance and Sex: Washington Women Journalists in Recent Popular Fiction. Spaulding, assistant professor of journalism, Columbia Union College and Beasley, Professor of Journalism, Philip Merrill College of Journalism. This study of 13 novels portraying Washington women journalists finds their portrayals have improved since 1990 when one authority concluded that most novels showed women as "unfulfilled unfortunates." The fictional women in this study, featured most prominently in detective stories, are eager to expose male corruption to further their careers but make little effort to change underlying social causes. These women are searching for relationships, but their careers still take precedence.Toplin, Roberet Brent, History of Hollywood: The Use and Abuse of the American Past (University of Illinois Press, 1996) is a collection of essays including one on All the President's Men.

Steinle, Paul, Print (and Video) to Screen: Journalism in Motion Pictures of the 1990s.
Steinle is associate provost at Southern Oregon University. Presented at the Popular Culture/American Culture Conference in New Orleans, April, 2000. Updated, October 22, 2002. © Paul Steinle

Stone, Gerald and John Lee, "Portrayal of Journalists on Prime Time Television." Journalism Quarterly, Winter 1990, pgs. 829-838.

UC Berkeley, in Journalism and Mass Communication, under Images of Journalism and the Media in the Movies, there is a good listing of movies and references.

Vaughn, Stephen and Bruce Evensen,"Democracy's Guardians: Hollywood's Portrait of Reporters, 1930-1945," Journalism Quarterly, Vol. 68, No. 4, 1991, pp. 829-838, looks at PCA files to see how the newspaper industry tried to influence depictions of the press in the movies.

Weintraub, Bernard, "Bad Guys, Good Guys: Journalists in the Movies," an analysis of how journalists are portrayed in motion pictures. Living Arts Pages, The New York Times, Oct. 13, 1997.

Winters, Joe explores reporters who usually show up in horror films in "The Monsters Meet the Press."

Zynda, Thomas H., "The Hollywood Version: Movie Portrayals of the Press," Journalism History, Vol. 6, No. 1, 1979, pp. 16-25, 32, is a scholarly overview of how movies have depicted journalism up to 1979.