Examining the Shift in the Portrayal of Journalism
Overall, Film portrays journalism as a very heroic profession. It portrays journalists as noble heroes who hold the systems they report on accountable for its actions. There is, however, a shift in the role of the journalist that occurred due to a change in how the public consumes its news. This shift can be seen by examining two pieces of media about journalism; The Paper and The Newsroom. While one is a show and the other is a film, the comparison between these two works shows how journalism has been portrayed in the past as well as how it is currently being received.
The 1994 film, The Paper, follows one day in the life of Henry Hackett as he juggles his responsibilities of his job working for The New York Sun and his personal relationships. Henry is portrayed as an ambitious hard-hitting reporter. From stealing leads off of a competitor’s desk to getting into a physical fight with a coworker, he will stop at nothing to make sure he finds the truth and is the first to report it. One of the film’s main settings is a messy air conditioner-less newsroom. This chaotic and faced paced environment is full of reporters running around trying to get their stories ready to be published in the paper the next day. The Paper portrays journalism as a messy and thankless, yet ambitious profession. The journalists in the film spend the entire day running around chasing leads and flirting with sources in order to discover the truth behind a story.
The Newsroom shows an entirely different side of journalism, one that involves a considerably less amount of time running around. While The Paper is about the lives of journalists working on a newspaper, The Newsroom focuses on journalism in a cable news show. The Newsroom portrays a more organized form of journalism. While the journalists in The Paper were out on the beat finding their stories, the journalists in The Newsroom focus on confirming facts they receive and making sure the public gets reliable information on the events happening in their city and the world. This type of journalism is no longer thankless work and the journalists, who are now portrayed as celebrities, are trusted by their viewers to confirm and report facts. There is less focus on the heroic hunt for the truth and more focus on the trust and duty to inform the public.
The shift in the portrayal of journalism in film mirrors the shift in the public perception of journalists and their roles in society. Journalism is still portrayed as a heroic profession that relies on integrity and the truth. However, with the rise of technology, specifically social media, journalism will continue to shift and face new challenges with how it is perceived and treated by the public and within media.
