Journalism: fiction and reality. The figure of journalists in films.

Résumé du document

In most of the movies or TV series, journalist characters are often represented in one way: stereotyped. Namely, a man in his 30's and single. Journalism is filled with stress due to the constant awareness those workers face since the news stays ongoing.
The job of a journalist is infinite; it requests availability and a total implication in their work. Moreover, journalists usually work for major companies, located in big cities. This case appears in the film "One fine day", the main character works as a reporter for the Daily News, in New York City, or in "Superman" which shows a journalist working in the famous fictional Daily planet. They both live in apartments which are usually portrayed as messy with papers, books, clothes or food spread all around the rooms, as if the person who "lives" there does not clean because of the lack of time provided his job. Furthermore, it also shows that when the journalist does not work at his office, he writes his articles at home, as in the film "All the president's men"...

Extraits

[...] In fact, reporters and journalists show themselves as time fighters. In cinema, we see them running everywhere, going place to place to cover stories, writing articles or getting interviews. Journalists' main goal, respect their duty to cover recent events in a limited time, becomes the genuine struggle, because of the absence of a “second place”. Each event has its particularizes and happens only once. Indeed, Schindler says: got to be the first one to get the attention and the exclusive coverage of the event, otherwise someone else will”. [...]

[...] Journalism has become one of the key factors in our society. Everyone turns to newspapers, magazines or TV news to be informed of what is going on in their neighborhood or in the world. Movie and TV producers have taken advantage of the important and essential presence of the journalists, in order to describe and depict the lives and the environment in which those men and women live; whose job's goal is to convey the information. However, the work provided and the life led by journalists represented in the movies, lead the audience to view stereotypes. [...]

[...] Stories such as the Watergate do not occur everyday, even though all the excitement always occurs while watching the adventures of a brave journalist facing all dangers to bring truth to the world. In fact, a couple of reporters investigate in ex Yugoslavia or in Israel to write articles about the horrors of the war that are happening at this same moment. But not all journalists have that “privilege”; in reality you need to get a lot of experience. [...]

[...] As the matter of fact, being a successful journalist takes time years of college, a 2 years master's degree and numerous previous jobs in other newspapers, you don't become a reporter right after school” Picard adds. Both experimented journalists (Schindler and Picard) assert about the stereotyped details in the movies: it remains true that managing time in that field is the biggest enemy. However the preconceived idea of the journalist who works late every nights, alone, to finish his paper, tremendously over exaggerated”, as they added. Because contrary to the image given, journalists do have a family, and do everything they can to finish their work before the end of the day. [...]

[...] The U.S government denied the existence of any special units sent on the premises, but above all, it declared an erroneous and scandalous number of casualties (516 people killed according to the U.S government instead of true total of 4000) and dismissed the case. Moreover, the North American's network news only broadcasted images and number of casualties on the U.S Army and how they struggled. Of course, the TV news omitted to talk about the slaughters on the Panamanian side. In this documentary we see that reporters risked their lives to denounce the corruption and the cruelty from the U.S army toward civilians. [...]