Motion Pictures, Journalism in

Prototypes

Cinematic depictions of journalism grew out of similar depictions in fiction and on stage, many written by journalists themselves. Novels in the early twentieth century told stories of idealistic young reporters confronting hardboiled editors in big-city newsrooms. The neophytes either proved their mettle by getting a big story or were broken by the newsroom's unrelenting cynicism. Plays such as Maurine Watkins' Chicago, produced in 1926, continued the theme of wisecracking reporters covering urban crime and corruption. Silent movies exploited that theme as well.

Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur's The Front Page (1931) proved the most influential work of this type; indeed, its influence is felt to the present day. The authors were onetime Chicago reporters, and they drew upon their experiences in writing their play that premiered on Broadway in 1928. The Front Page tells of reporter Hildy Johnson's desperate attempts to escape his Chicago newspaper and his tyrannical editor Walter Burns for a supposedly better life as a newlywed and New York City advertising executive. The scoop of a lifetime disrupts Hildy's plans as a convict escapes from jail on the eve of his scheduled hanging. At the end, it is unclear whether Hildy ever will successfully leave journalism or whether he would be better off if he does. The Front Page in many ways paints a damning picture of journalism; Walter and Hildy hide the escaped convict for the sake of an exclusive and reporters hound a woman to the point that she jumps out a window. Nevertheless, Hecht and MacArthur said they wrote their play as a fond remembrance of their reporting days, and they made the frenetic excitement of the newsroom outshine the dreary alternative of matrimony and the business world.

Scores of movies of the era seized upon the bigcity journalistic archetypes. Some, such as 1931's Five Star Final (itself drawn from a Broadway play), explicitly attacked the tabloid news ethos; the movie depicts an editor's growing pangs of conscience as his newspaper publishes a series on a woman's sordid past and eventually drives her and her husband to suicide. Others such as Picture Snatcher (1933) were more cavalier toward questions of journalistic ethics while reveling in the breathless fun of scooping the competition.

Prewar Movies

Screwball comedies of the 1930s and 1940s presented tales of romantic couples who expressed their mutual attraction by exchanging witty insults while enmeshed in an outlandish plot based upon lies and misunderstanding. Again, the journalism world offered a fruitful backdrop for such films. In Libeled Lady (1936), a newspaper hires a man to frame a wealthy woman who is suing the paper for sullying her name; the man and woman (William Powell and Myrna Loy) fall in love. In Nothing Sacred (1937), written by Ben Hecht, a newspaper turns the phony story of a young woman allegedly dying of radium poisoning into a media frenzy. The paper's star reporter falls for the young woman, which does not prevent him from slugging her in the jaw and her knocking him out in return. His Girl Friday (1940) remade The Front Page, turning Hildy into a woman. In casting Cary Grant as Walter and Rosalind Russell as Hildy, the movie made journalistic sensationalism seem powerfully romantic and the female reporter look exceptionally sharp and capable.

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