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This is m literature review of my thesis "Portrayal of Journalism in Films", University of Malta, 2010
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Chapter 2 - Literature Review
Journalism is a domain of moral choices, occasionally involving a melodramatic
interplay between good and evil, which probably explains why the news media have
proved such a fertile source of movie story-lines1. Over the years, movies have depicted
reporters as hard hitting, honest men and women who speak truth to power or corrupt
self-aggrandising maniacs who would do anything for high circulation or ratings. Best
filmmakers have turned their talent to journalism movie genre, as Matthew C. Ehrlich, a
journalism professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Campaign, righteously refers
to, in his excellent book, Journalism in the Movies (2004). In the journalism movie genre:
movies that focus on reporters and the news business; a common theme which is their
dual message about the world of journalism.
Ehrlich wrote, “They have exalted professional virtue by telling tales of ethical
practitioners versus amoral hacks; at the same time, they have broadly hinted at how
much fun amoral hacks can be.” Hollywood wants to entertain, to offer diversion and an
escape from reality. Case in point in why some films glorify journalism while others
depict journalists as scrupulous and amoral characters. “In journalistic movies, viewers
have the satisfaction of seeing the press confirm their fondest hopes and deepest fears”,
(Ehrlich, 1997, p.278). Such celebrations of the press have appeared throughout the
history of the journalism movie genre while responding to changes in social and historical
context.
1 Hargreaves, I., (2005), Journalism, A very short introduction, Oxford University Press, p. 109
13
Filmmakers have paid considerable attention to journalism (Zynda 1979, p. 17). In
fact it is very much to Hollywood that journalism came to attend its inky glamour2.
Zelizer (2004, pp. 187, 190) argues that cultural studies should be more attuned to how
that image is distinguished by ‘journalism’s reverence for facts, truth, and reality’. At the
same time, she says scholars must critically examine the contradictions within
journalism’s self-image, including those between its ‘informative, civic, and rational
sides’ and its ‘pleasure-inducing, entertaining, or simply affective ones’. Professor of
journalism Joe Saltzman, Director of the Image of Journalist in Popular Culture (IJPC)3
created a fine online database about fictional journalists, which is constantly being
updated. Langman refers to 1,025 American journalism films that came into being
between 1900 and 1996 (Langman, 1998)4. More than 2,100 titles for the same period of
time may be found in the cinematography From Headline Hunter to Superman, which
also includes international films and TV productions (Ness, 1997)5. Alex Barris’s book
Stop the Presses! (1976), is also considered a milestone in the literature of this topic as it
was the first complete study of the cinematic image of journalists. A recent book by Brian
McNair, Journalists in Film, Heroes and Villains, (2010), excellently portrays journalists
in film between1997-2008.
Popular representations of journalism such as novels, plays, and movies have been
fruitful sites for such inquiry.6 Many have been written by onetime journalists and hence
2 Feeney, M., (2004): Nixon at the movies: a Book about Belief, University of Chicago Press3 A project of the Norman Lear Centre, Annenberg School of Communication, University of Southern California in his yearly updated database, 2009 edition, boasts of 71,600 items including films, TV, fiction and non-fiction, radio, short stories, plays, cartoons, comic books and comic strips, music and many more see www.ijpc.org 4 Langman, L., (1998): The Media in the Movies: An Illustrated Catalog of American Journalism Films, 1900-1996, Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co.5 Ness, R., (1997): Headline Hunter to Superman: A Journalism Filmography, Lanham, Md., London6 Zelizer, B., (2004), Taking Journalism Seriously:News and Academy, Thousand Oaks:Sage, p.187,190
14
afford an opportunity to view ‘journalism through popular culture has provided models
for real-life journalistic conduct, with the film of All the President’s Men (1976) a prime
example. Schudson (1992, p. 126) says it has promoted journalism’s ‘central myth’, that
two young reporters and their newspaper brought down a corrupt president. The recent
film Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) depicted historical moments in which the press
triumphantly lived up to its theoretical ideal by exposing McCarthyism. In real-life cases
of journalistic shame have turned to the spotlight of Hollywood such as Shattered Glass’s
portrayal of a young magazine writer’s fabrication and The Insider’s story of corporate
greed and cowardice in network TV news. Yet in many other movies, journalists have
given the impression that ‘journalists are hard-drinking, foul-mouthed, dim-
witted social misfits concerned only with twisting the truth into scandal
and otherwise devoid of conscience, respect for human dignity or a
healthy fear of God’ (Rowe, 1992, p. 27), others conclude that
“journalists are rude, many times divorced, hard-drinking, cigarette-smoking, social
misfits who will do anything for a front-page byline, with few women or minorities in
managerial positions and editors concerned only with profits – that is, if you believe what
you see in most movies” (Gersh, 1991, p. 18).
Movies are powerful purveyors of myth7, however, movies do not always necessarily
‘serve and preserve social order’; they also potentially ‘have the capacity to change the
social order’ (Lule, 2001, pp. 191–2), or at least highlight the contradictions within it.
Media scholar, John Fiske has gone even further in asserting (1989, pp. 2, 6–7) that,
there is always an element of popular culture that lies outside social control that escapes or opposes hegemonic forces. Popular culture is always a culture of conflict, it always involves the struggle to make social meanings that are in the
7 Ehrlich, Matthew C, (2006) Facts, truth and bad journalists in the movies, Journalism, Vol.7(4), p. 515
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interests of the subordinate and that are not those preferred by the dominant ideology. . . Relevance is central to popular culture, for it minimizes the difference between text and life, between the aesthetic and the everyday that is so central to a process – and practice-based culture (such as the popular) rather than a text – or performance-based one (such as the bourgeois, highbrow one) . . . Popular culture is the culture of the subordinate who resent their subordination.
Popular culture, especially film, serves as a vehicle to explore these social attitudes
towards the image of journalists and provide a valuable comparative setting. It is argued
that cinematic representations are both a reflection of the existing world and rewritten,
reconstructions of what they show; creating coded examples for both cross examination
and internal exploration (Kuhn, 1985, p. 48). Roland Barthes’ study into semiotics
suggests that whilst we derive meanings from the codes used to create these seemingly
natural images, we must recognise the constructive tools of signification in their
production, (1957 cited in Kuhn, 1985, p. 5). These in turn become an interconnected
system of meaning where the images represented through film, act as a means of
communication, a set of languages, a system of signification – not just the seventh art.8
Thus film, as a popular culture text, acts as a specific means of producing and
reproducing cultural significance. By culture, meaning, the “processes which construct a
society’s way of life: its systems for producing meaning, sense, or consciousness”.9
Jensen and Jankowski have noted that much of the more recent research employing the
structuralist theoretical framework has dealt with popular culture as the primary area of
inquiry.10 Structuralist theory derives from the broader model of structuralism. As David
Silverman explains this model:
Structuralism is a model used in anthropology which aims to show how single cases relate to general social forms. Structural anthropologists view behaviour as
8 Turner, G., (2006), Film as Social Practice, 4th ed. Routledge, p. 599 Ibid., p. 5910 Jensen K. B. and Jankowski N. W. , A Handbook of Qualitative Methodologies for Mass Communication Research (London: Routledge, 1991), p. 26
16
the expression of a ‘society’, which works as a ‘hidden hand’ constraining and forming human action.11
The study of the image of journalism in film is quite recent and scholars from various
fields generated a large body of research as means of interpreting the “how” and “why”
the image of on-screen journalists changed from one decade to the next. Ehrlich, Dillon,
Saltzman and Good all examined the stereotypes of journalists in film from the 20th
century and found that a variety of categories where attached to each portrayal.
“Stereotypes are an especially useful tool in the study of popular culture, because they are
direct and simple expressions of popular beliefs and values, and because they can be
found in all areas of popular expression, both ‘real’ and ‘imagined’” (Nachbar & Lause,
1992, p. 26). Mass communications scholars have been studying ‘stereotypes’ since
Walter Lippmann introduced the term to the field in Public Opinion in 1922. Lippmann
said the term applies to a “picture in our heads” which caused the shaping of the
imagination in extraordinary ways. “We do not see and then define, we define first and
then see” he said.12 In the 1950s two distinct trends are discernable in stereotyping
research. The majority of researchers continued to concentrate on the deficiencies of
stereotyping (Bogardus, 1950, Hayakama, 1950, Klineberg, 1950, 1951) while others
began to question the assumptions which underpinned this traditional position (Laviolette
and Silvert, 1951). On the other hand, Fisherman (1956) argued that stereotypes were
valid to the extent that they served to reflect the nature of interaction between stereotyped
and stereotyped groups (1956, p.60) while Vinacke suggested that stereotypes were
representations of authentic high-level conceptual relationships between individuals (i.e.
11 Silverman, D., (2005), Doing Qualitative Research, Thousand Oaks, Sage Publications, 38012 Lippmann W., (1922), Public Opinion, Free Press, New York
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social groupings, 1957, p. 329). The radical implication of all this work was that
stereotypes were by nature neither irrational nor ‘bad’.13
Journalism movies point toward a key concern of cultural studies of the press: ‘the
tensions between how journalism likes to see itself and how it looks in the eyes of others’
(Zelizer, 2004, p. 178). However author Howard Good said that, “there is the danger that
stereotypes overgeneralize and prevent us from recognising reality.”14 That ‘newsmonger’
characters have persisted and played similar roles in both movies and real-life journalism
suggests that ‘journalism is something part of, rather than separate from, popular culture’
(Dahlgren, 1992, p. 18). The press’s attempts to enforce the boundaries between serious
news and pleasurable entertainment never have been wholly successful. According to
Loren Ghiglione (1990, p. 97), fictional portrayals of journalists offer a ‘fun-house mirror
reflection of reality’ that explores societal myths about journalists and produces partial
truths and exaggerations. Ghiglione in his article “The American Journalist: Fiction
versus Fact” noted that the early image of the journalist is part investigating hero, part
scoundrel and part wise guy and that this contradictory image comes has its roots in
popular culture especially fictional novels starting around 1890 and taking the American
reporter as its hero. Thomas H. Zynda (1979, p. 17) suggests that because the media
rarely present the public with a detailed understanding of the working conditions of
journalists, for most people the main source of information about journalists is found in
films. For Zynda, this situation accords Hollywood ‘a virtual monopoly on the public’s
image of the press’. The specific purpose of the studies also differ from each other, like
examining how the image of the journalist has evolved over time, (Brucker, 1980),
13 Extract from Oakes et al. (1994, pp. 2-3)14 Good H., (1989), Outcasts: The Image of Journalists in Contemporary Film Metuchen: Scarecrow Press, p. 7
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looking for reoccurring themes in journalism films (Kiste, 1986), comparing images of
journalists in different media (Langner-Burns 1989), and contrasting the image of
journalists in journalist films to non-journalist films (Bilodeau, 1994). These ‘preferred
readings’ make film a social practice and that is why in this study I would like to attempt
to provide an insight into the stereotypical imagery on screen and its changes in popular
culture, namely in film, by mapping through the transition and comparing the differences
and similarities throughout the years.
With the introduction of the sound film in the 1930s “the character … was an
exaggerated reflection of his creators, newspapermen with ambivalent feelings about
what journalism had done for them and to them” (Good, 1989, p. 9). Real life journalists
were being represented by fiction journalists such as Walter Burns in the The Front Page
(1931) who based on the editor of the Chicago Tribune (Walter Howey) (see Ghiglione,
1991, p. 3) and “sometimes the fictional journalist is the archetypical reporter that the
newsman turned-novelist would have liked to have been” (Ghiglione, 1991, p. 3). The
Front Page presents a ‘nightmare landscape’ of ‘universal corruption’ (Harvey, 1987, p.
89) whereas Ehrlich positions the play as the encapsulation of criticisms of the popular
press, with journalists portrayed as “daffy buttinskis” (p. 32). In the 1930s it was common
for journalists to move to Hollywood to make their fortune. Chicago journalists, Ben
Hecht and Charles MacArthur, turned scriptwriters, wrote the Broadway play in 1928 as a
nostalgic “old-fashioned valentine to journalism and American life.” (Ibid., p. 21). It was
shaped by the development of modern journalism in Chicago and by early novels and
plays and as the prototype of the journalism movie genre; it was debuted in a time of
controversy about tabloid news and the press’s role in society (Ibid., p. 20). About the
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fictiscious portrayal of the main character, was a Herald-Examiner reporter known as
Hildy Johnson, inspired by a real reporter named Hildy Johnson. Much to their dismay
the writers said “Hildy is of a vanishing type - the lusty, hoodlumesque half drunken
caballero that was the newspaperman of our youth…the outlaw type that journalism
schools and the new professionalism were driving into extinction”15 (Ibid., p. 30). On the
other hand MacArthur’s former Chicago Tribune editor, Walter Howey became the
play’s Walter Burns, editor of The Examiner whom they described as “that product of
thoughtless, pointless, nerve-drumming unmorality that is the Boss Journalist”, the
embodiment of every editor they had derided over drinks in Chicago taverns. 16
“Living their own rules and thumbing their noses at polite society and authority”,
reporters were considered hard-working, breaking the law when necessary, being lonely
fighters and married to their paper. Peggy, Hildy’s girlfriend warns him “It’s your chance
to have a home and be a human being-and I’m going to make you take it”. In these
“shyster films”, newspapermen, politicians and lawyers were all one and the same – hacks
on film. Newspapermen were after the scandal and would do anything to get the story,
even corrupt, but still they manage to topple corrupt city officials and save an allegedly
innocent man from execution (The Front Page, 1931). Saltzman (2002, p. 146)
notes that in movies, a journalist ‘can lie, cheat, distort, bribe, betray,
or violate any ethical code as long as the journalist exposes corruption,
solves a murder, catches a thief, or saves an innocent’. The movies
helped to change the basic disreputability of journalists into a
glamorous badge of honour. Many screenwriters were themselves
15 Hecht B. and MacArthur C., The Front Page, p. 12916 Ibid. , p. 31
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former journalists (mostly men). “Journalists were also savvy and
unpretentious, and most of all, they wrote the way people who bought
movie tickets actually talked. Snappy patter and snapped brims…the
likes of Hecht, MacArthur, Herman J. Mankiewicz (who won an Oscar for
the screenplay for Citizen Kane (1941), Samson Raphaelson (a former
New York Times reporter who became Ernest Lubitsch’s favourite
scenarist, Jo Swerling and Robert Riskin (Frank Capra’s favourite
scenarist).17 The result was a flood of pictures with newsroom settings
and/or journalists playing prominent parts: several movie versions of
The Front Page (1931).18
In “Portrayals of Journalists in Academy Award-Nominated Films, 1927-1993: A
Qualitative Analysis” (Bilodeau, 1994), Bilodeau compares the image of journalists in
two types of film: “journalist” films versus “non-journalist” films, in order to determine
how the images differ between film types and if “prevailing ideas regarding the negative
portrayal of journalists in Hollywood films are valid (Bilodeau, 1994, p. v). After
analyzing 64 Academy Award-winning films, Bilodeau found that overall journalists
17 Feeney, M., (2004), Nixon at the movies: a book about belief, University of Chicago Press, Ch. Sweet Smell of Success, p. 13518 (Rival reporters try to scoop each other while covering a fire. Bette Davis, George Brent, Roscoe Karns), Doctor X (1932), It Happened One Night and Hi, Nellie! (1934), Libeled Lady (When an heiress sues a newspaper, the editor hires a gigolo to compromise her. Jean Harlow, Myrna Loy, Spencer Tracy), Theodora Goes Wild and Mr. Deed Goes to Hollywood (1936), Love Is News (1937), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1938), Foreign Correspondent (1940), His Girl Friday (1940) (The Front Page remake, which involved a sex change for reporter Hildy Johnson from Hildebrand to Hildegarde, but kept the mile-a-minute give-em-Hecht dialogue; Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell) and The Philadelphia Story (1940) (Tabloid reporters crash a society marriage; Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart.), Penny Serenade (1941), Meet John Doe (1941) (A reporter's fraudulent story turns a tramp into a national hero and makes him a pawn of big business; Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward Arnold) and of course, the greatest newspaper movie of them all, Citizen Kane (1941), and many more.
21
tended to be portrayed positively, especially as major characters in non journalism films
(Bilodeau, 1994). The majority of the negative portrayals appeared in films of the 1930s
and in secondary characters. Bilodeau also concludes that reporters and photographers are
depicted more positively than publishers and columnists (Bilodeau, 1994). Nor is this
a new assertion. Although some (Fallows, 1997; Hanson, 1996) have
argued that contemporary movies treat the press more harshly than
the films of Hollywood’s golden era, as early as 1931 journalism
educator John Drewry (1931, p. 14) was lambasting Hollywood for
making ‘the reporter more nearly resemble a gangster than even a
moderately well-off business or professional man’. In Picture Snatcher
(1933), the characterization of the aggressive, intrusive photojournalist
of the 1920s and 1930s was perpetuated by Jimmy Cagney’s tabloid
photographer’s obnoxious behaviour. According to Brennen, Cagney’s
character in the film steals a photograph from a mentally unstable
fireman and in another scene, uses a hidden camera to photograph an
execution.19 As Joe Saltzman cites,
“Peter Warne is a cynic, with no regard for the truth; a brash opportunist who will stop at nothing to get what he wants; an amoral, alcoholic rogue, who will lie, cheat, do anything to get a scoop for his newspaper; a big-city, wisecracking shyster who talks fast, thinks fast, works fast, lives fast, often lives by his wits, and won’t take any crap from anyone. Yet, as played by actor Clark Gable, written by Robert Riskin and directed by Frank Capra in “It Happened One Night (1934), he is irresistible”20
19 Brennan, B., From Headline Shooter to Picture Snatcher The construction of photojournalists in American film, 1928–39, Temple University, 2004: Sage Publications, p. 43220 Saltzman, J., Frank Capra and the image of journalists in American film, USA Today, November, 2002
22
Director Frank Capra created a somewhat iconic archetype of the American reporter
in his collection of journalism films from 1926 to 1961. Many of these archetypes were
reinvented in later decades, and with little variation, turned into radio and television who
were just as circulation-hungry and cynical as their prototypes.21 Social critic-historian
Ray Carney believes that Capra “had a profound emotional and psychological effect on
more than three generations of American audiences”. Capra had an intimate relationship
with newspapers. As a youngster he worked as a newspaper boy, his best friend, Myles
Connolly was a hard-boiled newspaper reporter for the Boston Post who later moved to
Hollywood. Together with Riskin, his primary collaborator, Capra’s individual
personality formed his films. “So, in reading Capra’s films in terms of its relation to the
American society of its time, one has to imagine both that Capra’s self-expressed his
individuality into it and this self was a product of the society he commented on.”22
As the acclaimed film critic Pauline Kael (1973) suggested, “A newspaper picture
meant a contemporary picture in an American setting…usually a melodrama with drama
and political corruption and suspense and comedy and romance” and she added “In the
silents, the heroes were often simpletons. In the talkies, the heroes were to be the men
who weren’t fooled, who were smart and learned their way around. The new heroes of the
screen were created in the image of their authors: they were fast talking newspaper
reporters.”23
However, there have been exceptions to Hollywood’s fondness for news business.
From Five Star Final (1931) to Nothing Sacred (1937) to Absence of Malice (1981) and 21 Ibid., p. 5422 Buscombe E., Politics and the Media: America on screen? Hollywood feature films as social and political evidence, pp. 25-2923 Kael P., (1984), The Citizen Kane Book, New York: Limelight Editions
23
Shattered Glass (2003), journalists have worn black hats. Network (1976) and Mad City
(1997) epitomise Hollywood’s love-hate relationship with the popularity of television
news. Both Ace in the Hole (1951) and Sweet Smell of Success (1957) are a portrait of
journalistic megalomania and malice – creating their own genre: newspaper noir. There is
nothing heroic about it; the profession is presented as corrupt and evil: a sordid means to
a hateful end. The real-life journalist Walter Winchell was the inspiration for such films.
Nicknames as “the god of the gossip”, Winchell played himself in two 1937 films for the
20th Century-Fox, Wake up and Live and Love and Hisses, but his most notable movie
“appearances”, took place with Winchell nowhere to be seen – Sweet Smell of Success
being the prime example with J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster) as the ambitious columnist,
referred to “being a national disgrace” by Steve, the jazz musician. Same can be said for
Charles Foster Kane, the grandest newspaper villain in movie history, in Citizen Kane
(Orson Welles). He really did try to mean well; at least for a while.24 Nearly 30 years later,
All the President’s Men made larger-than-life heroes out of reporters Woodward and
Bernstein. Appropriately enough, they were played by two of the decade's most accomplished
and popular actors – Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford. The popular image of the
journalist swirls between the real and the fictional without discrimination (Saltzman).
The impact of the image of female journalists in newspaper movies was significant in
mapping the changes in the popular culture beliefs as regards to the role of women in the
working field as well in society. Nowhere were females portrayed as equal as their male
counterparts as in the journalism movie genre. The female reporter “was considered an equal
doing a man’s work, a career woman drinking and arguing toe-to-toe with any male in the
shop, and more than capable of holding her own against everyone and anything, a real tough
24 Feeney M., (2004): Nixon at the movies: a Book about Belief, University of Chicago Press p. 144
24
sister, yet one who often showed her soft side and cried long and hard when the man she
loved treated her like a sister instead of a lover.” (Ghiglione & Saltzman, 2005).
Appropriately called, ‘sob sisters’, female reporters have had to always prove themselves. In
the 1930s, sob sisters underwent a form of masculinisation, adopting male-associated names
and ways of dressing designed to downplay their femininity and make them look more like
one of the boys. By the end of the film, most sob sisters, no matter how tough or how
independent they were during the film, would give up everything for marriage, children and a
life at home. Journalism historian Howard Good, sums up how female journalists felt about
the name: “Most women reporters resented this label because it reinforced the stereotype of
women as big-hearted but soft-minded, emotionally generous but intellectually sloppy.”25 The
sob sister has come a long way since 1930s and the dichotomy has nowadays shifted. Female
reporters in journalism movies have been portrayed as tough investigators as in Veronica
Guerin (2003), where she sacrificed her family life and even lost her own life to fight drug
lords. Saltzman argues that “the 21stcentury images are not all that different from the images
of the sob sisters of the past – if a woman is successful, it means she has assumed many of
the characteristics of the newsman, losing her femininity in the process”. Although I admit
that it’s still mostly a no-win situation, women’s depiction in recent journalism movies such
as State of Play (2009), whose character has the ultramodern job of political gossip
blogger and the ripely old-fashioned name of Della Frye, is not remotely as Hildy
Johnson in His Girl Friday (1940), longing to quit as she says, “I want to go someplace
where I can be a woman.” According to Ghiglione, this genre featured women journalists
as crime solvers and only to a limited extent showed them as “something other than
unfulfilled unfortunates in need of a man.” 26 Ghiglione’s conclusion regarding the sorry
25 Good H., (1998) Girl Reporter: Gender, Journalism, and the Movies, Scarecrow Press, p. 50 26 Ghiglione, L., (1990), The American Journalist: Paradox of the Press, Washington, DC: Library of Congress, p.124
25
depiction of women journalists in fiction in my opinion does not hold true. Diana
Christensen (Faye Dunaway) in Network (1976) is an astute television producer, always
trying to find ways to increase audience rating whereas, Jane Craig (Holly Hunter) in
Broadcast News (1987) becomes the first woman managing editor for the national
network news, working long hours, putting news above everything else, even her
personal life – however they do it conscientiously. As Kiste (1986) noted, reporters
consider their career more important than their interpersonal relationships.
Conclusion
New input in this vast topic is hard to find, especially on new journalism films that
have been released in the 21st century. In this study I did not focus on the image of photo
journalists as such. My research will focus more on the world of the publishers and the
media-owners and how they affect the newspaper world and the work of the journalist in
yesterday and today’s world. In undertaking a comparative approach between Deadline
U.S.A. (1952) and State of Play (2009) I hope to add something new to the study of the
image of journalists in film by analysing the changes due to technological advances and
its repercussions on the newspaper world. By analysing these aspects of film it is possible
to note the repetitive characterisations that might, or might not, occur from film to film
and decade to decade. By studying the various images of the journalist, the historian can get
a better understanding of what the public of a specific era believes about its media and the
people in that media (Saltzman).
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