Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, of West Wing and Social Network fame, has announced his first post-Oscar project. He’s developing a new HBO series set behind the scenes of a cable news show. “The hope,” says Sorkin, “is that I can bring the same idealism and romanticism that made government seem sexy on The West Wing, to journalism, which in America is held in at least as much contempt as government.”
The 21st century hasn’t been the best period for on-screen journalists in terms of idealism or romanticism, at least compared to the golden age of the 1970s. With that in mind, Emma Dibdin lists five of the most compelling portrayals of journalism from the past decade.
5. Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1974 (2009)
Adapted from David Peace’s dark quartet of novels, the Yorkshire Ripper-inspired Red Riding trilogy debuted on Channel 4 in the UK and in cinemas across the pond. The first installment follows a cocksure young journalist (Andrew Garfield) working for the Yorkshire Post as he investigates a series of unsolved, grisly murders. As in any decent noir tale, he’s met on all sides with lies, intimidation and flat-out physical brutality – not least from the corrupt local police – and though the character’s far from saintly, his dogged pursuit of the truth at all costs is just what you want from an idealised screen hack.
4. Shattered Glass (2003)
Not many journalists ever get their own biopic, but this is one area in which crime, and specifically serial fraud, does pay. Stephen Glass was a reporter for US political magazine The New Republic, and was revealed as a fraud after the legitimacy of one article came into question. As colleagues delved deeper, it became clear that Glass had fabricated almost every article he had written in his three-year tenure, from quotes to sources to entire stories. As a taut, compelling thriller, Shattered Glass works. As a study of journalistic ethics and the pitfalls of fact checking, it’s a damning, incendiary must-see.
3. Zodiac (2007)
Giving a newspaper cartoonist their rare turn in the spotlight, David Fincher’s true-life thriller is also one of the few journalism films to deserve the over-used All The President’s Men comparison. The “Zodiac” killer committed a string of murders in San Francisco during the 1960s and 1970s, and the case remains unsolved despite years of investigation. Cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) decodes an encrypted message sent to the paper from the killer, and becomes fixated on solving the case. Investigative journalism on film had its heyday in the Seventies and has been in decline since, but Fincher’s eye for detail makes this a rare gem.
2. Good Night, and Good Luck (2005)
Before Frost/Nixon, there was Murrow/McCarthy. This George Clooney-directed drama follows the conflict between Joseph McCarthy and CBS journalist Edward R. Murrow in the early 1950s. At great personal cost, Murrow and his fellow journalists produced a series of condemnatory news reports against McCarthy, which were instrumental in his downfall. Bookending the film is Murrow’s 1958 speech to the Radio and Television News Directors Association, in which he warns his fellow broadcasters not to waste the potential power of television by allowing political pressures or corporate sponsors to compromise content. In the age of News Corp, the sentiment resonates with renewed power.
A transcript of the speech can be read here
1. State of Play (2003)
The only entry not based on a true story also offers the most thorough and grounded portrait of day-to-day journalism. Following the mysterious death of a young woman on the tube, news reporter Cal McCaffrey and his colleagues gradually uncover a vast conspiracy with the oil trade and the British government at its heart. Led by a top-drawer Brit cast including John Simm, James McAvoy and Bill Nighy, this BBC miniseries is a shrewd, supremely gripping mystery, with the six-episode format allowing room for detailed exploration of newsroom dynamics. The 2009 US remake is worth a look, but doesn’t come near to the original’s slow-burn power.
