CLASS ELEVEN INTRODUCTION

Today we're going to look at the newspaper publisher who is depicted in many films as a greedy, hypocritical businessman who will do anything for a buck. In newspaper novels from 1890 to the present, the publisher is shown as someone with a mean-spirited contempt for the public, his or her only interest being money and power.

William Randolph Hearst is probably the most notorious publisher in American history. He changed the old-style, upper-class journalism with his yellow press treatment of crime, sex, and disasters, his attacks on the rich, his phony lawsuits against big corporations, his screaming patriotism, his faked photographs, and his exploitation of superstition, along with puzzles, comics, contests, sheet music and medical quackery.

A Hearst-like press baron in a 1909 novel is a typical example. He claims in editorials to speak for the People, the Real People, the majority who have been dumb so long. In private, however, he refers to what his yellow journals publish as pabulum for the masses.

The amoral publisher spouting smarmy journalistic platitudes to dignify circulation stunts or camouflage unholy political ambitions was a fixture in novels and films throughout the century. Today, these egomaniacal newspaper tycoons have become the cold-blooded media owners and executives in one film after another.

Charles Foster Kane is the bigger-than-life publisher in Citizen Kane, made in 1941.

CLASS ELEVEN: The 1940s – Part Three: Citizen Kane and the Newspaper Film. Evil Publishers. Newspaper Columnists and Villains. Comic Journalists.

            Publishers and Columnists

            Comic Journalists

CLASS ELEVEN SUMMARY

We've seen some very evil publishers who covet power above all else. The newspapers and other media that they own are used as a means to their ends, and it is only a coincidence if the public is served in the process.

Citizen Kane gives us an unforgettable look at the power of the press and shows us a publisher who does what he wants when he wants to. No war in Cuba? He'll manufacture one. He'll do anything to get what he wants, and his arrogance finally destroys him. Citizen Kane also offers a fascinating profile of a journalist who puts his conscience above all else, including his love of alcohol. He descends into an alcoholic haze rather than watch his friend, the publisher, destroy everything they had built together.

But Citizen Kane's true relevance for this class is that it gives audiences a chance to see how a hard-working newsman goes about trying to piece together a story and how really difficult that job is. The film demonstrates how a reporter's search can become a riveting framework for a movie and how the use of the reporter as the primary means of telling a complicated story gives viewers a knowledgeable guide to what is happening and why it is happening. The reporter knows things no one else knows, and audiences love having that kind of inside information.

We've seen another power-mad publisher move heaven and earth to get what she wants in State of the Union. She fails at the last minute, but not before showing us how she tries to ram-rod her personal agenda down the throats of the editors who run her newspapers across the country. Although it is highly unlikely that her editors would all quit as they do in the film, it's a nice image to remember: Responsible journalists not buckling under to a corrupt publisher. At the end of the film, however, the publisher is as stubborn and arrogant as ever. She may have lost this round, but seems eager to get back into the fight.

We've seen how another power-crazed publisher-editor uses his newspapers and radio stations to build up the image of an unknown John Doe into a national institution, and then when his puppet refuses to take orders, he destroys him by using that same power of the press. Meet John Doe offers a frightening picture of a media baron determined to do whatever he wants when he wants to. Nothing seems to be able to stop him – and he simply glares in anger as the sob sister and John Doe declare their love for each other. He's a mighty adversary and one who keeps his power at the end of the film, ready to build up or destroy something else, depending on his whims and fancies.

We've seen the sob sister in Meet John Doe start out as a columnist who would do anything to keep her job and make a big splash on the newspaper. But by the end of the film she has learned her lesson and teams up with the editor to fight the publisher's media machine. What the film never says, however, is that no matter how hard they fight, they are doomed. They obviously lose their jobs and without a newspaper to blast their new consciences to the public, they will end up like the rest of us – powerless to do anything against the overwhelming power of the publisher's media.

We've seen an honest editor-publisher in Unholy Partners who makes a pact with the devil, in this case a gangster, and pays for this sin by purposely getting on a risky plane flight that is almost sure to end in disaster. The journalist gone astray usually ends up dead. And this is what happens in this film. The editor's protege and the woman who loves him take over the reins of the newspaper without the interference of any unholy partner.

We've seen an evil magazine publisher who not only browbeats his staff but even commits a murder when his anger erupts into uncontrollable rage. The Big Clock not only shows what a tyrant the publisher is in the office, but takes the publisher's immorality to the next logical step. The circulation manager becomes the publisher's accomplice in covering up the crime and only the hard work of a magazine editor, who is shown as a decent family man trying to do the right thing, finally saves the day.

We've seen another newspaper publisher in The Fountainhead who uses his newspaper to grab absolute power. The only person more despicable is the architectural critic on the paper who is plotting all the while to steal the publisher's power from him. He wins control when the publisher shows weakness in dealing with a controversial issue. When the publisher realizes that he is vulnerable, he loses all of his confidence and arrogance and ends up a desperate man who can only find peace by committing suicide. The detestable critic wins the day and remains in power.  The Fountainhead may be the silliest portrait of the press ever put on film, but it is hard to dismiss the portrait of the amoral critic who cunningly plans the takeover of the newspaper.

Critics always seem to be nasty villains in the movies. Besides the architectural critic, we've seen another critic who is so used to getting his own way that when a woman rejects him, he resorts to murder. Laura offers us one of the most sardonic, acid-tongued critics in all of film history. The only way to stop him, apparently, is a bullet in the chest.

The 1940s movies' popular recurring characters also show up in newspaper offices. The Three Stooges figure in one reporter's story and then, by accident, become reporters in Crash Goes the Hash and end up with a front-page story and a bonus. In Fighting Fools, one of the Bowery Boys, formerly known as the Dead-End Kids, is a sports reporter. And we've seen how even the youngest journalists in an Our Gang comedy, Going to Press, know how valuable a free and hard-working newspaper is to our form of government.