Skip to main content
CNN Opinion

5 movies that get the newsroom right

By John P. Avlon, CNN contributor
updated 4:02 PM EDT, Sat June 23, 2012
In
In "All the President's Men" (1976), Dustin Hoffman, center, plays Carl Bernstein and Robert Redford is Bob Woodward.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • John Avlon: "The Newsroom" debuts this Sunday, a modern depiction of journalism
  • He names 5 good journalism movies that carry a sense of purpose, are entertaining
  • They include "Network," "All the President's Men," "Broadcast News," he says
  • "Good Night and Good Luck" a small masterpiece, he says; "His Girl Friday" a retro classic

Editor's note: John Avlon is a CNN contributor and senior political columnist for Newsweek and The Daily Beast. He is co-editor of the book "Deadline Artists: America's Greatest Newspaper Columns" and won the National Society of Newspaper Columnists' award for best online column in 2012.He is a regular contributor to "Erin Burnett OutFront" and is a member of the OutFront Political Strike Team. For more political analysis, tune in to "Erin Burnett OutFront" at 7 ET weeknights.

(CNN) -- With the debut of Aaron Sorkin's new show The Newsroom on HBO this Sunday, I've been thinking about the best film depictions of journalism in American history. Any 'best-of' list is inherently subjective, but you definitely don't need to be a journalist to appreciate the sense of purpose these classic films provide.

So without further ado and just for fun on a summer weekend, below are my nominations for the top five journalism films of all time.

"Network": Paddy Chayefsky's satire is still razor sharp after almost 40 years, offering a prophetic look at what would happen when news desks started answering to entertainment divisions.

The film also managed to anticipate the rise of Reality TV, with one surreal side plot in which a self-styled "liberation army" gets its own television show and immediately goes from talking about the proletariat to negotiating net versus gross contracts. But in the end it is a morality play, featuring William Holden, Faye Dunaway and Peter Finch as Howard Beale, a network anchor over the edge of a nervous breakdown who shouts the immortal line "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!"

During the meteoric rise and fall of Glenn Beck, I was half convinced that he'd announce he was punking us by trying to make Howard Beale come alive.

Entertainment: What Aaron Sorkin learned from CNN for "Newsroom"

"All the President's Men": The genius of this dramatic depiction of Watergate is that the movie keeps you in suspense even when everybody knows how the story is going to end.

Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman are a perfect pairing as Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, with Jason Robards playing Ben Bradlee, all capturing the chase of a great story as it unfolds.

The film was made just a few years after Nixon's resignation, but somehow it does not sacrifice the film's sense of perspective on a time when journalists uncovered a corrosive conspiracy at the highest level of the government and toppled a president who only 20 months before had won a 49-state landslide.

John Avlon
John Avlon

"Good Night, and Good Luck": This George Clooney-directed 2005 film is a small masterpiece, filmed in black and white. David Strathairn perfectly captures the integrity of Edward R. Murrow facing down Joe McCarthy at a time when the witch hunt for the Communist enemy within was ending careers and creating an atmosphere of fear.

The film is funny and smart, with tight construction and an ensemble cast that includes Robert Downey Jr. and a chubbed-up Clooney as Murrow's producer Fred Friendly. The opening scene speech, taken from Murrow's own words, should be regular required viewing for anyone in the news industry. Key line: "To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful."

"Broadcast News": Armed with a perfect cast of Albert Brooks, William Hurt and Holly Hunter, "Broadcast News" is a brilliant comedy that captures the outsized influence of the anchorman -- played by Jack Nicholson -- back in the days of the Big Three. Adding depth are cutaway scenes depicting the characters as neurotic children.

It is ultimately a story about ambition and unrequited love, offering a useful, if not particularly uplifting, meditation on the unsteady boundary between infatuation, love and trust.

Sorkin: "I'm a fiction writer"

"His Girl Friday": Howard Hawk directed this 1930s slapstick comedy, which is based on the Ben Hecht-penned screenplay for The Front Page. Cary Grant plays editor Walter Burns trying to woo his ex-wife and fellow journalist Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell) back to the world of the newsroom, with its roll-top desks, three-martini lunches, rotary phones and manual typewriters clacking away. In a nice bit of symmetry, the film debuted the overlapping dialogue technique that Aaron Sorkin later perfected.

Honorable mentions: Falling outside this list include "The Year of Living Dangrously," "Ace in the Hole," Will Ferrell's epic, hilarious performance as Ron Burgundy in "Anchorman," and the fifth season of "The Wire." Buy them, rent them, download them - but most of all, enjoy them.

Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion.

Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Jon Avlon.

ADVERTISEMENT
Part of complete coverage on
Opinion on the news
updated 8:24 AM EDT, Fri May 24, 2013
Pepper Schwartz says with the constant drumbeat of scandals in armed forces, the military must require education programs to teach men self control, address culture of sexual entitlement
updated 8:30 AM EDT, Fri May 24, 2013
Gayle Sulik says the reason the BRCA1 gene mutation test for breast cancer risk -- the one Angelina Jolie had -- costs so much is that a company owns the gene and sets the price.
updated 10:26 AM EDT, Fri May 24, 2013
John Sutter says the Scouts' plan to welcome gay Scouts but not gay adult Scout leaders doesn't make sense.
updated 9:53 AM EDT, Fri May 24, 2013
Dean Obeidallah, Margaret Hoover and John Avlon's Big Three podcast takes on the New York mayoral race's new candidate, GOP hypocrisy in Oklahoma relief funding and Bloomberg's comment on who shouldn't go to college
updated 9:25 AM EDT, Fri May 24, 2013
Despite dramatic terrorist incidents, the terror threat that led to 9/11 has been defeated, and Obama is right to say the U.S. should move on, says Peter Bergen
updated 9:11 AM EDT, Fri May 24, 2013
The Louisiana governor says there's a common theme in the IRS controversy, the seizure of phone records from The Associated Press, and the efforts to rally support for Obamacare.
updated 8:20 AM EDT, Thu May 23, 2013
Melissa Brymer says children need special attention to recover from the trauma of the tornado, and parents must be patient and calm
updated 7:38 AM EDT, Thu May 23, 2013
Will Marshall says Tim Cook was grilled about Apple's tax practices but the real culprit is a dysfunctional tax system.
updated 9:44 AM EDT, Fri May 24, 2013
Peter Bergen says there's a great deal of misinformation about the counterterrorism policies President Obama will address in a speech Thursday.
updated 8:47 AM EDT, Wed May 22, 2013
Two decades ago, Joshua Prager was one of more than 20 people in a terrible bus crash. The author revisits the scene to see how others have made sense of the event.
updated 4:20 PM EDT, Wed May 22, 2013
Joshua Wurman says tornado deaths can be reduced, prediction and preparedness can be improved, but it's up to individuals to make sure they heed warnings and have a safe place to go.
updated 10:57 AM EDT, Wed May 22, 2013
Ruben Navarette says under Obama, a record number of immigrants have been deported. So why is his drive for immigration reform now in conflict with enforcement officials?
updated 9:34 AM EDT, Wed May 22, 2013
Nathan Gunter says Okies have learned to love the big sky, but also to watch it carefully for signs of trouble: When the sky betrays us, we cope by helping one another.
updated 9:33 AM EDT, Wed May 22, 2013
LZ Granderson says the heroics of teachers who shielded kids in the Oklahoma tornado remind us of what they do for our country
updated 7:26 AM EDT, Wed May 22, 2013
Tornado researcher Louis Wicker says progress is being made on understanding and predicting extreme storms, but if you hear a warning, take cover immediately
updated 7:29 AM EDT, Tue May 21, 2013
The masked henchmen grabbed three fingers on each of the Syrian political cartoonist's hands and pulled them back all the way -- so far that they cracked.
updated 11:22 AM EDT, Mon May 20, 2013
Meg Urry says loss of the failing, planet-finding Kepler satellite would be huge for NASA--but one way or another, it's a matter of time before we find signs of life on other worlds
updated 12:21 PM EDT, Tue May 21, 2013
Yahoo isn't buying a technology company so much as the community that uses it, Douglas Rushkoff says
updated 11:15 AM EDT, Tue May 21, 2013
Joseph Nye says it's far too early to write off the rest of the president's second term because of the IRS controversy, other issues
updated 7:32 AM EDT, Mon May 20, 2013
Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton write that people pass up opportunities to spend their money to avoid disagreeable tasks
updated 9:45 AM EDT, Sun May 19, 2013
Bob Greene on how 18th century Americans tried to make sense of the day with no sun
updated 8:57 PM EDT, Fri May 17, 2013
With guest Rep. Keith Ellison, John Avlon, Margaret Hoover and Dean Obeidallah discuss the president's scandal trifecta, hope for immigration and what Jolie's revelation means for women.
updated 1:09 PM EDT, Fri May 17, 2013
The press has turned on President Obama with a vengeance, writes Howard Kurtz
updated 2:01 PM EDT, Sat May 18, 2013
Donna Brazile says our democracy is endangered, not by the Russians, North Korea, Iran or even terrorists. To quote Pogo: "We have met the enemy and he is us."
updated 1:59 PM EDT, Sat May 18, 2013
Photographer Arne Svenson defends his show "Neighbors," portraits of the occupants of a building near him taken through their windows.
updated 9:37 AM EDT, Mon May 20, 2013
Theater critic Kevin Williamson was kicked out of a play when he took the phone away from an audience member and threw it. He says it was worth it.
updated 10:25 AM EDT, Sat May 18, 2013
U.S. actor Angelina Jolie (L) holds daughter Zahara as husband and actor Brad Pitt (C) carries son Maddox during a stroll on the seafront promenade at the historic Gateway of India outside their hotel in Mumbai on November 12, 2006.
Gil Welch says women must not panic over Angelina Jolie's mastectomies: 99% of women don't carry the BRCA1 gene.
updated 4:52 AM EDT, Sat May 18, 2013
JR's "Inside Out" project brings public spaces alive with giant representations of people
updated 3:22 PM EDT, Fri May 17, 2013
Roger Colinvaux says the IRS scandal is fundamentally about disclosure of donors, not tax-exempt status.
updated 11:14 AM EDT, Thu May 16, 2013
Maia Goodell says the military should use civil legal remedies on sexual assault cases.
ADVERTISEMENT