Heroes and Scoundrels: The Image of the Journalist in Popular Culture

Abstract

Ehrlich, Matthew C. and Joe Saltzman. Heroes and Scoundrels: The Image of the Journalist in Popular Culture. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015* 241 pp. $25.Matthew Ehrlich and Joe Saltzman's love shines through in this book-love of journalists, love of journalism in a democracy, and love of popular culture's depictions of such. The main task of this book is description, which includes movies, television, comic books, novels, plays and radio. It is organized into six topics: history, professionalism, difference, power, image, and war. In each chapter, the authors describe with many examples how popular culture has treated journalists within each of those six frameworks and also refer to scholarly research including media sociology, media ethics, political economy, visual communication, gender and ethnic studies, and cultural studies. Each chapter has a similar conclusion: journalists are often depicted as either heroes or scoundrels.According to the authors, popular culture either mythologizies or demythologizes press history. The movie Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) is an example of mythologizing as Edward R. Murrow and his team challenge Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. The opposite is true of the post-World War I novels by Emile Gauvreau, a tabloid editor. A movie of that era, Hot News Margie (1931), even has reporter Margie dying on the job and, at heaven's gate, being directed to hell.The chapter on professionalism considers how popular culture portrays journalism as exciting and sometimes dangerous, and journalists as variously scalawags, outlaws or noble. While real journalists might be like Clark Kent, popular culture portrays them more like Superman.The chapter on difference tackles the subject on two fronts. The first: How popular culture describes journalists as being different from the rest of the world. The second: Differences among journalists based on race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation. Movie and other popular media portrayals of H.L. Mencken and Hunter S. Thompson are used to exemplify journalists as outsiders. The much lengthier second part of this chapter includes portrayals of women journalists, journalists of color, and journalists of various sexualities.The chapter on power examines how popular culture portrays journalists as working either for or against political and economic powers. While books and television shows are mentioned, most of the examples in this chapter come from movies, including the Harry Potter films and their journalistic character, the columnist Rita Skeeter. …

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