SOB SISTERS:
THE IMAGE OF THE FEMALE JOURNALIST
IN POPULAR CULTURE

Update: 4-2008

SOB SISTERS: THE IMAGE OF THE FEMALE JOURNALIST IN POPULAR CULTURE - Introductory Essay by Joe Saltzman.

SOB SISTERS: THE VIDEO. The new one-hour IJPC Associate Premium tape features 90 clips from movies and television programs documenting the image of the female journalist in film and television, 1929-2006.

SOB SISTERS - THE BEST FILMS AND TV PROGRAMS chosen by IJPC Experts.

SOB SISTERS - A DEFINITIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY including female journalists appearing in films, television and radio programs, novels and short stories, plays, cartoons, comic books, comic strips, art works, songs, games and commercials from 1700 to 2006. There are more than 7,500 entries. Some are newshawks who act more like detectives than journalists. Others are investigative reporters, editors, publishers, columnists, foreign and war correspondents, cubs, critics, photojournalists, sportswriters. Some make a brief appearance and then disappear forever. All leave impressions in the minds of the audience. This is as complete a list of female journalists in films, TV and radio programs and fiction as ever compiled. To make effective use of the Sob Sisters Bibliography, The Image of the Journalist in Popular Culture (IJPC) Database© 2006 Edition must be used. The IJPC Database is only available to IJPC Associates.

Pre-1900
1900-1920
1920-1930
1930-1940
1940-1950
1950-1970
1970-1980
1980-1990
1990-1995
1995-2000
2000-2005

THE RETURN OF THE SOB SISTER IN 'SUPERMAN RETURNS': LOIS LANE AND THE FIGHT FOR TRUTH AND JUSTICE by Mary-Lou Galician, a faculty member at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Communication.

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.

HACKS, HEELS AND HOLLYWOOD: How Accurately Do Recent Film Portrayals of Women Journalists Reflect the Working World of Their Real-Life Counterparts? by Sarah Herman, student at Bournemouth University, England, UK studying for a degree in BA (hons) Multi-media journalism .

SOB SISTERS FEATURED IN TABLOID SUITE by Ferde Grofe, a 1932 composition.

CRIME, ROMANCE, SEX: WASHINGTON WOMEN JOURNALISTS IN RECENT POPULAR FICTION by Stacy L. Spaulding, assistant professor of journalism, Columbia Union College and Maurine H. 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.

Jean Marie Lutes' "Front-Page Girls: Women Journalists in American Culture and Fiction, 1880-1930," Cornell University Press, 2007. This is the first study of the newspaperwoman in American literary culture at the turn of the 20th century. It examines the relationship of real-life reporters such as Nellie Bly and Ida B. Wells with fictional characters such as Henrietta Stackpole, the lady correspondent in Henry James' "Portrait of a Lady." It chronicles the exploits of a a neglected group of American women writers and uncovers an alternative reporter-novelist tradition that runs counter to the more familiar story of gritty realism generated in male-dominated newsrooms. It also explores how women's journalism shaped the path from news to novels for women writers.
Also, Lutes' Sob Sisterhood Revisited," (American Literary History - Volume 15, Number 3, Fall, 2003, pp. 504-532, Oxford University Press), and "Into the Madhouse with Nellie Bly: Girl Stunt Reporting in Late Nineteenth Century America" (American Quarterly, Volume 54, Number 2, June 2002, pp. 217-253).

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

Aralynn Ann Abare McMane's "Hello, Handsome, Get Me Rewrite: Toward an Understanding of the Portrayal of the Female Journalist in Film and on Television." 1991.

Diana Meehan's Ladies of the Evening: Women Characters of Prime-Time Television, The Scarecrow Press, 1983, 192 pages.

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

"Return of the Sob Sisters," by Stephanie Shapiro, American Journalism Review, June-July 2006. "Newspapers have fallen in love with long narratives about fatal illnesses and disfiguring ailments, particularly when they involve children. Many readers respond powerfully to these emotional sagas that, like the work of the sob sisters year ago, often offer lessons in spiritual stamina and redemption." Shapiro writes, "Critics say that in capitulating to the demand for personal stories, newspapers have surrendered to the competition. "Journalism today is built on these kinds of stories," Joe Saltzman, director of the Image of the Journalist in Popular Culture project at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication, said in an e-mail interview. "There doesn't seem much room left in the newspapers and on television for news coverage on the major events and trends unless that story can be cloaked as an article on an individual braving great odds or suffering great misfortune or achieving superhuman success."

Bonnie J. Dow's Prime-Time Feminism: Television, Media Culture, and the Women's Movement since 1970 (Feminist Cultural Studies, the Media, and Political Culture," 240 pages, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996. Discussion of Mary Richards, Murphy Brown, and other real and fictitious journalists.