Heroes and Scoundrels: The Image of the Journalist in Popular Culture (The History of Media and Communication)

Heroes and Scoundrels: The Image of the Journalist in Popular Culture (The History of Media and Communication)

Whether it's the rule-defying lifer, the sharp-witted female newshound, or the irascible editor in chief, journalists in popular culture have shaped our views of the press and its role in a free society since mass culture arose over a century ago.   Drawing on portrayals of journalists in television, film, radio, novels, comics, plays, and other media, Matthew C. Ehrlich and Joe Saltzman survey how popular media has depicted the profession across time. Their creative use of media artifacts provides thought-provoking forays into such fundamental issues as how pop culture mythologizes and demythologizes key events in journalism history and how it confronts issues of race, gender, and sexual orientation on the job.   From Network to The Wire , from Lois Lane to Mikael Blomkvist, Heroes and Scoundrels reveals how portrayals of journalism's relationship to history, professionalism, power, image, and war influence our thinking and the very practice of democracy. Reviewed by: John M. Coward, University of Tulsa, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA Authors Matthew Ehrlich and Joe Saltzman make a convincing case that fictional journalists are both ubiquitous and significant in pop culture--in plays, movies, television, novels, short stories, comic strips, graphic novels, video games, and so on. These images matter, they argue, because they "are likely to shape the people's perception of the news media as much if not more than the actual press does." At the societal level, the authors note that popular stories of fictional journalists "illustrate our expectations and our apprehensions regarding the press and its relation to democracy." Ehrlich, professor of journalism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Saltzman, director of the Image of the Journalist in Popular Culture (IJPC) project at the University of Southern California, focus their research largely on 20th-century popular culture in the United States. They catalog a range of journalistic myths perpetuated in popular culture and offer insights into the meanings and consequences of these myths. Importantly, too, they examine stories by female, minority, and gay or lesbian authors for their "unique take on issues of difference that many journalists confront." The authors organize their analysis following six themes--history, professionalism, difference, power, image, and war--all of which involve fundamental issues about journalism ethics and practices. Regarding female journalists, the authors note the persistent theme of women falling in love with their sources or trading sex for stories (as in Katie Holmes's character in Thank You for Smoking). When it comes to war, pop culture formulas alternate between reporters and photographers as heroes "whose job requires day-to-day courage and toughness" (see Barbara Taylor Bradford's romantic novel Remember) and, in the post-Vietnam era, journalists who are morally compromised, wracked with grief and guilt (as in The Killing Fields). In these and many other examples, the narrative formulas that dominate popular culture come at the expense of more complicated (and accurate) depictions of journalists and journalism. With scores of examples and an extensive appendix of media sources, Heroes and Scoundrels is a terrific resource for courses in mass communication and society, contemporary issues in journalism, journalism ethics, media history, and related courses. Instructors will find numerous examples of journalistic stereotypes, exaggerated characterizations, and breezy ethics that can spark classroom discussions and research assignments. Beyond the book, the authors offer a wealth of sources--as well as updates, supplementary materials, a database, and thousands of scholarly articles--at the IJPC website (ijpc.org). The website also includes the IJPC Archive, which includes thousands of videos and audiofiles as well as novels, short stories, and plays. Finally, the authors have produced a DVD set that includes excerpts of movies and television shows featured in the book. Journalists, as Ehrlich and Saltzman note, have always complained about how popular culture depicts them--with good reason. Despite such complaints, popular culture has kept journalism in the democratic conversation, a presence the authors believe has benefited both journalism and American society: "Pop culture routinely makes the press matter by showing good journalism saving the day and bad journalism wreaking pain and havoc," they conclude. "It suggests that in spite of formidable obstacles and occasional wrenching change, the press and its noblest ideals will somehow endure." Let's hope so. -- Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, March 2016 Reviewed by: David Asa Schwartz, The University of Iowa, USA Although the book is careful to begin by laying a historical foundation, it is not a chronological recounting of journalists in pop culture. Instead, it breaks new ground by focusing on six thematic areas: history, profes