"Reporter's Favorites" Interviews

The first person i was able to get in touch with was Sandra Trapani, who is the editor of the Salem News. Her favorite journalism movie was "All the Presidents Men." She says that when pursuing a story she feels much like Woodward and Bernstein did. As you discover more details of the story, your picture of what happens becomes more and more thorough. She said, "The more you uncover pieces of the puzzle, and usually that brings more questions and uncertainty and responsibility to tell the story right." She says that this is especially pertinent in today's world, as writers on the internet tend to write first and ask questions later.

The second person i interviewed was Robin Ellington, who is a freelance writer at the eagle tribune. Her favorite journalism movie was "Absence of Malice." This was a film released in 1981 staring Paul Newman and Sally Field. This film is about a newspaper pinning a murder on Paul Newman's character on some shady sources. Robbin said that this film shocked her because of the way the story was twisted by journalists. Journalists exploited the "grey area" of the story, and portrayed it in what ever way sold papers. Robin mentioned her favorite quote from the movie, "Everything they said was accurate, but none of it was true.” The paper winds up destroying a man's life, with extrapolation and incorrect interpretation. Robin said this was a great example of what not to do in journalism.

Good Night & Good Luck

This wasn't the worst movie we watched, but it wasn't the best. I think this movie had amazing potential: great actors, great writing, great cinematography.. but the ending was quite disappointing and really lacked climax. On the positive side, Edward Murrow's speeches blew me away!!! They just made me want to write well! (Uncle Zinzer would be proud right, Jo?) I'm still so glad to have seen this movie, the cinematography was so amazing. I noticed that there was probably a TV in just about every shot, how appropriate...

still waiting to hear from a reporter! hopefully I can get that up by tomorrow!

Good Night, and Good Luck...Staying Awake

Though this was the most painfully boring movie we have watched in this class, I was still able to glean a couple things from it. First, I adored the cinematography, especially Clooney's choice to set it in black and white. Basically, he wanted to use the real footage of McCarthy, and in order to do that, had to set the entire film in black and white to match the footage. I think it worked out, considering the darkness and sobriety of the film. I also liked the use of slow, dramatic zoom-ins and zoom-outs. The whole film had a steady pace that matched the boring-ness of the film, so at least it was cohesive. The other thing I was able to appreciate was the overall message about freedom of speech and the citizens' duty to use it. This is a great example of how the media plays the role of the watchdog and keeps those in power accountable. I loved Murrow's final monologue, as I think it sums up not only the motif of the film, but of journalism as a whole.

No Presidesnts, but Kane

I'm glad I've seen at least one of the top favorites!

Mr. Will Broaddus from the Salem News picks Between the Lines for his number one journalism movie. "Based on the now-defunct Real Paper, which was to Boston what the Village Voice was to New York during days when underground/countercultural news was a force to be reckoned with. It's simply a great movie, but also resonates today because it is about a paper that is struggling financially, a problem that confronts the field generally today."

Citizen Kane as number two. "When Orson Welles/Hearst writes that declaration of principles, and publishes it for his readers to see, so they can hold him to them--that's what journalism is all about."

Salvador was Broaddus' third favorite. "This man, a journalist played by James Woods, is divorced, broke, and desperate, but gives him a story to pursue, and he's all over it, with a vengenace."

Top 3

After contacting Salem News, Gloucester Times, Boston Globe, NY Times, and the Standard Times, the latter finally came through.

Andy Pomolonis of the Standard Times based out of Newbedford, MA loved All the President's Men, naturally. He claimed it was the movie that "kicked off the whole rush to be a journalist." Pomolonis said knowingly that "everybody wanted to be the next Woodward and Bernstein."

His second favorite was a 1931 film directed by Lewis Milestone simply because of it is a "classic."

His third favorite was Absence of Malice, an 80's film starring Paul Newman and Sally Field.

All the President's Men clearly stands out above the others that Pomolonis remembers.

Capote & State of Play

In Cold Blood was an intriguing film, but I found Capote much interesting! Philip Seymour Hoffman was amazing- and after watching the Truman Capote interview in class, I can see that he truly embodied his character. I was interested to know what he did to prepare for his role.

This was my second viewing of State of Play and I must say that I enjoyed it much more the second time around. I could more fully appreciate Cal's work to search for truth, I've always loved Russell Crow anyway... and Rachel McAdams so this movie was a win/win for me.

Walking the Dangerous Line of Journalistic Novels

I was very intrigued by the efforts Capote made to redefine not only journalism, but writing in general. He fused journalistic truth with the structure of a novel. With a novel, to write an adequate story the author must know his characters on an almost deeply personal level to make them convincing. For Capote this is an aspect he focused on deeply, spending an enormous amount of time with the Clutter family murders, just to figure out what makes them tick. He had to get inside their heads, which is what novelists do with their characters, and journalists stray away from. Each part he was fusing was held down by the other. Capote couldn't finish the book until the actual journalistic event he was writing about came to a conclusive end. He was writing journalism, but because he was formatting it as a novel he had to wait on the events to transpire so he could adequately fit the narrative together fluidly. He broke his novel into several parts as he wrote to account for this. It's something that is more widely done today, but for Capote it was truly ground breaking mainly because he was writing as it was occurring, not just reporting the facts, but doing something even more difficult and challenging and that was stylizing the facts together to create a cohesive story as he gained more information and didn't even have the complete picture yet. Capote sums this up beautifully by saying "This book was an important event for me. While writing it, I realized I just might have found a solution to what had always been my greatest creative quandary. I wanted to produce a journalistic novel, something on a large scale that would have the credibility of fact, the immediacy of film, the depth and freedom of prose, and the precision of poetry.”

Also, here is an interview with Capote on his views on capital punishment: