For our past movie assignment, I was hoping to get the DVD version of the film “Absence of Malice” and curl up on my couch at home. Instead, I was stuck with the VHS version of the movie. So, of course, I was stuck in the library listening to the high pitch mosquito sound from the rewinding film. However, I will admit that I found the old quality charming. There is an endearing quality to old journalism movies. Likewise, on a black and white screen, I enjoyed watching Citizen Kane lose himself in his newspaper empire and Mr. Smith go to Washington. Perhaps what I like most about these films is being able to see how journalism was perceived in the past.
Fast forward to the DVD era and this weekend some friends and I watched the movie How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days. Okay, okay so I highly doubt Professor Campbell would ever put this chick flick on his list of journalism movies. But as I watched Kate Hudson bat her lashes and then try to rid herself of Matthew McConaughey, I couldn’t help but notice the journalism principles tucked into the script. Kate Hudson plays Andie Anderson, a journalism major who writes the “How To” column for Composure magazine. But Andie is restless at her work. She admits early in the movie, “I busted my butt in grad school to be Andie Anderson, ‘How to,’ girl, and write articles like, ‘How to Use the Best Pick-up Lines’ and ‘Do Blondes, Do They, Like Really Have More Fun?’ I want to write about things that matter, like politics and the environment, and foreign affairs—things that I’m interested in.”
I believe the desire to “write about things that matter” is primarily what drives a journalist. While journalists often become lost by the glamour of seeing their name on the front page, the true front-page stories should be those that will help make the world a better place. In class, we discussed the eight “enduring values” sociologist Herbert J. Gans identified in the media. The value of “order” seeks to maintain a sense of organization in our country. Other values like “leadership” and “rugged individualism” are values that have significance in our country. While I suppose a story about pick-up lines can somehow identify itself under the “rugged individualism” category, it is not a story that is truly world changing.
In class, we also discussed watchdog journalism. Watchdog journalism, at least the idealized form of watchdog journalism, also strives to help society. Through uncovering corruption and scandal, journalists strive to maintain order. However, investigative stories require extensive research, time and money. All of which the media is having a hard time providing. In an article from “Columbia Journalism Review,” titled The Survival of Investigative Journalism, Cristine Russell discusses how some freelance writers have taken it upon themselves to fund their investigative work. While the media should consider how it spends its money, investigative journalism is an investment that must be made. Joseph Pulitzer said, “More crime, immorality and rascality is prevented by the fear of exposure in the newspapers than by all the laws, moral and statute, ever devised” (The Press, 172).
Preventing crime contributes to maintaining order in society. In the book “The Elements of Journalism,” Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel argue that “too much of the new ‘investigative’ reporting is tabloid treatment of everyday circumstances” (151). No small wonder why Andi is upset over her column in the movie How To Lose a Guy in Ten Days. Investigative work on blondes’ ability to have fun is just not the stuff of Watergate.
Yes, investigative work is more expensive. It is more time consuming, too. But how can society hope to maintain order without watchdog journalism? Indeed, society needs a watchdog to prowl on the streets that no one else will walk on.
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