Oct. 25: My favourite journalism movie
For years, whenever I asked a seasoned reporter to name his
favourite movie about journalism, I could pretty much bet the farm he
would answer with "All the President's Men."
I could hardly blame them for it. After all, Woodward and Bernstein's reporting brought down a president. Next to starting World War III, that's probably the biggest thing a journalist can do. When journalists watch All the President's Men, they are dreaming. They are saying: "Man, wouldn't it be great if I could write a story like that too?"
There are many reasons why All the President's Men succeeds. For one, it is based on a true story – a drama about the collapse of an American presidency.
But for reporters - be they seasoned or novices - the movie also functions as wish fulfillment; All the President's Men could be viewed as a fairy tale. It contains several wonderful performances by Jason Robards (he won an Oscar for it) and, of course, Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman (Redford, who played Woodward, wanted another big star to play Bernstein as he thought that having a relative unknown in that role would have slanted the story in Woodward's favour. He approached Hoffman at a Knicks game and persuaded him to take the role.)
But as much as I enjoy All the President's Men, it doesn't make me squirm. Kafka famously said that people should only read the kind of books that wound them. I like to think we should adopt the same attitude when we go to the movies.
The Insider challenges me.
Here we have Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino) a producer at 60 Minutes who has learned that a former Brown & Williamson Tobacco executive, Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe) is willing to violate his confidentiality agreement and disclose privileged information about the addictive nature and unhealthy content of his former company's products.
The interview is taped and, just before it goes to air, CBS corporate affairs informs Lowell that the segment can't be broadcast. If it does, Brown & Williamson could sue and (a) jeopardize the pending sale of the network to Westinghouse and/or (b) Brown & Williamson could win ownership of CBS.
About two thirds of the way through the movie, Pacino has a great monologue where he challenges the head of CBS news, asking him if he's a newsman or a businessman. Who cares what CBS brass wants? The news department has operated - and, indeed, MUST operate - without any interference from anyone, including CBS itself. If it does, it's not a news program. It's a consumer affairs program whose content is dictated by special interests at CBS head office.
That challenges me as a newsman and as a human being.
If Bergman won the right to air that story and B&W sued, today's broadcasting landscape could be an entirely different place. I shudder to think of what sort of programming we'd see on a network owned by a company whose biggest goal is to sell as much tobacco as possible. I'm sure we'd see lots of TV shows where smoking looks glamorous. Yeah, just what the world needs.
But does a newsman have to answer those questions? Does a newsman have to be a businessman too? Does a newsman have to put his humanity aside so he can be "totally objective" or does he embrace his humanity, even if that means he'll be compromising his ability to be an effective journalist?
These are questions that The Insider forces me to ask myself.
There are no questions that ATPM asked me.
And that is why I believe The Insider is the superior film.
I could hardly blame them for it. After all, Woodward and Bernstein's reporting brought down a president. Next to starting World War III, that's probably the biggest thing a journalist can do. When journalists watch All the President's Men, they are dreaming. They are saying: "Man, wouldn't it be great if I could write a story like that too?"
There are many reasons why All the President's Men succeeds. For one, it is based on a true story – a drama about the collapse of an American presidency.
But for reporters - be they seasoned or novices - the movie also functions as wish fulfillment; All the President's Men could be viewed as a fairy tale. It contains several wonderful performances by Jason Robards (he won an Oscar for it) and, of course, Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman (Redford, who played Woodward, wanted another big star to play Bernstein as he thought that having a relative unknown in that role would have slanted the story in Woodward's favour. He approached Hoffman at a Knicks game and persuaded him to take the role.)
But as much as I enjoy All the President's Men, it doesn't make me squirm. Kafka famously said that people should only read the kind of books that wound them. I like to think we should adopt the same attitude when we go to the movies.
The Insider challenges me.
Here we have Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino) a producer at 60 Minutes who has learned that a former Brown & Williamson Tobacco executive, Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe) is willing to violate his confidentiality agreement and disclose privileged information about the addictive nature and unhealthy content of his former company's products.
The interview is taped and, just before it goes to air, CBS corporate affairs informs Lowell that the segment can't be broadcast. If it does, Brown & Williamson could sue and (a) jeopardize the pending sale of the network to Westinghouse and/or (b) Brown & Williamson could win ownership of CBS.
About two thirds of the way through the movie, Pacino has a great monologue where he challenges the head of CBS news, asking him if he's a newsman or a businessman. Who cares what CBS brass wants? The news department has operated - and, indeed, MUST operate - without any interference from anyone, including CBS itself. If it does, it's not a news program. It's a consumer affairs program whose content is dictated by special interests at CBS head office.
That challenges me as a newsman and as a human being.
If Bergman won the right to air that story and B&W sued, today's broadcasting landscape could be an entirely different place. I shudder to think of what sort of programming we'd see on a network owned by a company whose biggest goal is to sell as much tobacco as possible. I'm sure we'd see lots of TV shows where smoking looks glamorous. Yeah, just what the world needs.
But does a newsman have to answer those questions? Does a newsman have to be a businessman too? Does a newsman have to put his humanity aside so he can be "totally objective" or does he embrace his humanity, even if that means he'll be compromising his ability to be an effective journalist?
These are questions that The Insider forces me to ask myself.
There are no questions that ATPM asked me.
And that is why I believe The Insider is the superior film.
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