Hacks on screen

And a happy new year to you too.

Something light and frothy to keep the hard frost at bay. I asked people on Twitter for suggestions on films about journalists I could recommended to my first year journalism students.

Below is, in no particular order, what came through. Feel free to let me have your choices and comments. A list of journalism films from the Washington Post has barely any of those mentioned below. You pays your money etc etc. It seem that films broadly fall into two categories; the journalist as single-handed (generally male) hero or the cyincal or embittered hack doomed to come to a sticky end.

If I had to pick out my favourites then Defence of the Realm possibly just edges All The President's Men and both are a short nose ahead of Salvador and Network. There's a trailer of the Brit conspiracy thriller below to whet your appetite / remind you.

ATPM is the better training film. Dustin Hoffman as Carl Bernstein gives a masterclass in interviewing which is far more useful (and usual) than Reford's somewhat overwrought underground meetings with the legendary Deep Throat. And the quality of the film is clear in the casting of the excellent Hal Holbrook for that role. There is strength in depth in this movie.

Despite all that it must be a generational thing because the 1980s setting of Defence of the Realm resonates stronger than the wider collars in the Washington Post newsroom.

I wonder too if your choice of favourites indicates how you feel about journalism overall? Does liking the marvellous His Girl Friday suggest a more whimsical attitude? What could you infer from an appreciation of Fear and Loathing? Bad things happen to good people in most of mine. Hmmmm.

Of course if we widened the scope to television we could then include series 5 of The Wire but that's a whole other genre.

And the nominations are:

The Killing Fields
Salvador
The Quiet American (and more on Graham Greene here)
Citizen Kane
The Aviator
Veronica Guerin
Frost/Nixon
The Year of Living Dangerously
The Day the Earth Caught Fire
Das schreckliche Mädchen (The Nasty Girl)
His Girl Friday
Ace In the Hole
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
Broadcast News
Goodnight and Good Luck (more on Edward R Murrow here)
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
All The President’s Men
Defence of the Realm
The Sweet Smell of Success
Network
Welcome to Sarajevo
The Lost Honour of Katharina  Blum
Cry Freedom

Comments

[BristleKRS]

I love His Girl Friday, one of my favourite screwball comedies. But if you've got that in there, then how about the two versions of the play it's based on, The Front Page (I've only seen the Lemmon/Matthau one), or the updated remake Switching Channels?

Can't quite believe you've put Veronica Guerin in there though!

[philc]

I should stress that these are suggestions from Twitter followers. I just started with All the Presidents, Sweet Smell and Defence of the Realm and let others add what they saw fit.
There are a couple on the list I'd not include and plenty more missing.

[BristleKRS]

Another one springs to mind, one with Andrew McCarthy (the least enjoyable BratPacker IMHO) as an American journalist/novelist in Italy during the Strategy of Tension period. Can't remember its name, hang on...

'Year Of The Gun', it's called. Not great, but interesting.

[philc]

That does sound interesting and probably gets award for least likely casting.
I thought of The Insider (although it is more from the whistleblower's point of view) and Sam Fuller's Shock Corridor.

[Cheap Computer Canada]

Despite all that it must be a generational thing because the 1980s setting of Defence of the Realm resonates stronger than the wider collars in the Washington Post newsroom.