Hollywood Reporters

Dear Dr. Ink:

This is a trivial inquiry, but what’s your view on Hollywood perversions of journalism?

In the new film “The Ring,” Naomi Watts plays Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter Rachel Keller, who stumbles across a deadly videotape. (Anyone who sees the tape supposedly dies in seven days.)

Watts may look like a reporter in “The Ring,” but she doesn’t act like one. (See this interesting article.)

D. Parvaz, Reporter
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Answer:

This is no trivial inquiry, but critical to the public perception of journalists’ credibility, or lack thereof. We should stipulate that the lens of Hollywood distorts almost everything. For example, television cops have a tendency to solve all serious crimes in a single day, or at least within the confines of a dramatic hour. Even crusty city editor Lou Grant, revered by many journalists, seemed able to cover a big city with only two reporters and a photographer named “Animal.”

So it is not the fact of distortion that should be in question, but the nature of that distortion. Back in the day, cinematic reporters and editors were plucky individualists, courageous, mildly corrupt, cynical and hard-drinking, champions of the little guy. Clark Gable played this role magnificently in movies such as “It Happened One Night” (1934) and “Teacher’s Pet” (1957).

How things have changed. In most Hollywood dramas over the last two decades, the journalist is a vulture, a rat in a pack, a heartless villain who descends from the hills to shoot the wounded. Rather than a brave watchdog and guardian of democracy, the cinematic reporter is a blood clot in the body politic.

But perhaps the tide is beginning to change. In “Never Been Kissed,” Drew Barrymore plays a geeky copy editor (excuse the tautology) and goes undercover for a story on life in a Chicago high school. The journalism is absurd, but the satire is affectionate. And though Doc has not yet seen the “Ring,” it sounds as if the reporter battles against the forces of darkness. Just like real life.