What a scoop!
In an earlier post on Twitter, I argued that “There’s a certain allure in being “in the know”. One of the most common stereotypes in cultural products is the brave journalist with the scoop story exposing the truth.” In a later post I argued that the internet as a medium (as a medium, mind you) is changing a lot of cultural meanings, one of them being criminality. Combine these notions and what do you get? Ad-Age’s review of Russel Crowe’s new film “State of Play”.
Here’s a short excerpt:
Watching “State of Play,” I couldn’t help but think that I was witnessing the dying of a cinematic archetype: the Hero Journalist. It feels like a bookend to “All the President’s Men,” with Crowe’s worn-down, worn-out reporter character, Cal McAffrey, as the earnest-but-embittered descendant of Robert Redford’s and Dustin Hoffman’s dashing young Woodward and Bernstein. Hollywood’s going to stop making movies like this because, let’s face it, newspapers — those that are left — are in no position to inspire yarns like this anymore.
I concur that the internet has indeed changed how we view journalism. As my Twitter post showed, traditional news outlets are sometimes slow to react to emerging stories that are being talked about in Twitter, for example. This is one key driver for stripping journalism of some of its allure, but to me the biggest reason is the multitude of viewpoints the blogosphere offers on any given topic; an interested person can read blog posts (of severely varying quality, granted) that cover a happening from different angles, something that most newspapers simply can’t match. Or rather: after reading on a topic extensively in a variety of blogs, the “generalist” view that newspapers offer can seem quite lacking.
I do slightly disagree with Ad-Age’s piece in the sense that the hero journalist archetype is not likely going to face a fast and sudden death. More “extinct” archetypes still emerge in films every now and then (especially those having to do with gender). But it’s still a very astute observation they made.
Recent Comments