The Figure of the Journalist in Hollywood Movies

(4 Credits)

This seminar will look closely at a common cultural type: the figure of the journalist as depicted in Hollywood movies and other films. We will treat these characters as the carriers of ideas about ethics in journalism, freedom of the press, the glare of media attention and the call for social justice. The Journalist as recurring character is frequently a righteous fighter for truth, a wisecracking gossip, the enabler and hand holder for whistleblowers, or part of a ravenous mob demanding responses from people caught in the media's glare. All these types — and others we discover — will be named, classified, examined in detail, and interpreted as clues to how we think about journalism as a democratic art.