By Chris Daly

More news today about journalism.

~First, an update from the NYTimes about the harrowing captivity of four of its own journalists (including Tyler Hicks, a BU alum who will be the commencement speaker this spring at BU’s College of Communication — assuming he stays out of any further serious trouble). And thanks to Joe Klein, on today’s “Morning Joe” on MSNBC, for pointing out that when certain people (he mentioned Sarah Palin) whine about the “lame-stream media,” they should realize that they are disrespecting people who deserve better. 

~Whither Glenn Beck? Who the heck knows?

~Thanks to Michael Miller for pointing this out, here are some interesting further thoughts on the NYTimes pay model (including bold assertions about the future) from John Gruber at Daring Fireball. (With a name like Daring Fireball, no wonder he’s so confident about his predictions…)

~A happy prospect: help-wanted from Talking Points Memo, which is seeking to fill a new position, that of associate editor for Washington news. Here’s the take-away:

Crackerjack news judgment, experience as an editor and deep familiarity with politics and political news are each a must. Competitive salary for qualified applicants; health care, three weeks annual vacation and 401k benefits provided.

Glad to see health care benefits being offered. Wonder what is meant by “competitive salary”. . .

I am posting the following essay by Tyler Hicks — an award-winning news photographer for the New York Times (and B.U. Journalism alum). It was sent by the Times via email, “exclusively to Times subscribers.” But I cannot imagine that the newspaper would mind my posting it here:

The Faces of Famine BY TYLER HICKS A malnourished child at Banadir Hospital in Mogadishu, Somalia. More than 500,000 Somali children are verging on starvation. Photo by Tyler Hicks   Famine is sweeping across southern Somalia and sending a stream of desperate people into Mogadishu. Tens of thousands of children are said to be dying there, and there’s not enough help to meet the demand for food and medical care. The Shabab, the Islamic militant group with ties to Al-Qaeda, has made delivery of aid to remote areas, and even to the capital Mogadishu, not only difficult but also unreasonably slow, further reinforcing the crisis. I was recently on assignment to photograph the crisis in Mogadishu. Just a few miles from where our plane landed I was taken to a refugee camp where hundreds of new arrivals, those who walked there with their belongings – and children – on their backs, waited for help and a place to settle. The sight of foreigners, and their hope that help had arrived, created a steady appeal for help. A bundle under a woman’s arm revealed an emaciated child, then another in the same state carried by someone else. I motioned to my camera in an attempt to show I was with the news media and couldn’t help them with what they needed: food, clean water, medicine, mosquito nets, shelter. The worst cases were at the crowded hospital. That’s where I found the hardest hit, mostly children, some unable to walk or even sit up, others vomiting and all suffering from dysentery. In the hallway every available surface was used for another sick child. I’ve seen bad conditions in hospitals, but this was one of the worst. Swarms of flies infested the mouths and eyes of children too weak to move. Their parents spent the day swatting the flies away from them and doing whatever else they could to keep them alive. I photographed a father carrying his lifeless daughter, wrapped in cloth, out of the hospital for burial. Mogadishu is unsafe for foreigners, and journalists rely on local fixers and security to help do our job. Time on the street is very limited, and you’re never left in one place for long before moving. This means you’re forced to work quickly, even inside the hospital. I found this frustrating, but I reminded myself to trust our guides and allow them to make those decisions. In early August, The New York Times ran a front-page photograph of a child who was reduced to the frail framework of a starved body. The image showed the child in a fetal position, arms wrapped around the head, almost in a protective gesture. I could see that this image, however disturbing to view, would give proof of how desperate the situation had become. I enthusiastically support the image chosen for Page 1. The public reaction was overwhelmingly positive, and a reminder of the impact The Times can generate – not only among our readers, but also among other news media organizations and humanitarian aid groups. This is an example of the raw, unfiltered definition of news photography. It doesn’t happen every day, and it might not come your way in the course of a year. But sometimes you land on a story, a cause, something that has meaning to you, and the resulting photographs have an impact. They are seen and spur reaction. In a digital age, that’s when you’re reminded of the impact that a still, motionless photograph can have.

By Chris Daly

From the New York Times comes this powerful photo by photographer Andrea Bruce. It is lit almost like a Caravaggio painting, with its dramatic chiaroscuro. The lighting that falls on the averted face at the lower right adds, if it is possible, to the poignancy of the scene. (The original caption read: “In Grip of Cold, Afghan Family Mourns Death of 8th Child: The mother of Khan Mohammad, a 3-month-0ld boy who died because of exposure, in a camp in Kabul, Afghanistan.)

At the same time that this photo captures a pitiful human tragedy, it also raises questions that go right to the heart of the big policy questions: What are we doing in Afghanistan anyway? After 10 years of involvement, why do babies freeze to death? If we are that ineffective, then leave. If it is just helpless no matter who intervenes, then leave. If al Qaeda is busted up and bin Laden is dead, then leave.

New York Times/ Andrea Bruce

By Chris Daly

One of the most important photographers and photo editors of the last century has died. Horst Faas, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner during his long career at The Associated Press, was 79.

Obits are here and here and here.

Faas really made his mark in Vietnam, where he was stationed from 1962 through 1973. There, he planned the coverage, trained new photographers and photo stringers, edited many of the most memorable images of the war, and shot photos himself. From the tiny darkroom in the bathroom of the AP’s Saigon bureau, he was responsible for much of the “look” of the war.

Two photos are always associated with Faas and his constant efforts to disseminate photos that would show the reality of war:

–in 1968, during the Tet Offensive, the AP photographer Eddie Adams snapped a photo of a South Vietnamese officer executing a Vietcong prisoner. The photo caught the very moment when the bullet entered the prisoner’s head and captured something about the offhand violence of the war.

–in 1972, he fought to transmit the unforgettable image of a young girl fleeing naked and screaming from a napalm attack. The picture was shot by Nick Ut, a Vietnamese photographer trained by Faas, and the decision to send it out was one that Faas fought hard for. I remember seeing it on the front page of the Boston Globe on the day it was published in 1972 and never could forget it.

As I discovered in researching my new book on the history of journalism, Covering America, Faas was also responsible for another of the most emblematic photos of the Vietnam War, the photo from 1962 of a monk burning himself to death in protest against the government of South Vietnam. The photo was taken by AP correspondent Malcolm Browne. But Browne was a reporter/writer, not a photographer. The only reason he was carrying a camera that day was that Faas insisted that all AP correspondents learn to take photos and carry cameras with them. Back at home, union rules forbade AP correspondents from shooting photos, but in Vietnam, those rules didn’t apply, and Faas wisely turned everyone into a photographer.

Recently, while researching the photos for my book, I came across Faas photo. This is a photo that I knew I wanted for my book, but I had a devil of a time figuring out who owned the rights to it. I had seen it variously credited to TIME and the New York Times (both wrong) and to the AP (not quite right either). It is a photo that shows three of the key U.S. correspondents stationed in Saigon during the early years of the war: David Halberstam of the Times, Mal Browne of the AP, and Neil Sheehan of UPI (later of the Times). They are standing around in front of a helicopter. Browne is smoking and Sheehan holds a big map.

According to Faas, he took the photo himself. And he told me that he took it with his own personal camera and that it never belonged to AP. But rather than rile the AP and its lawyers, he sent me the image directly via email and said to go ahead and use it with his blessing. Here’s what he wrote late last year:

I took the photo at the time as a personal picture and should have it in my personal computer files. I will look for it beginning next week: No time now – I am off for a quick trip (without my computer). Since all my material at the time was officially AP material I don”t want to get in conflict with AP and would give you the photo “courtesy of..” i.e. free of charge, In return I would be interested in a copy of your book once it is published. OK?

Best regards, Horst Faas

Thanks again, Horst.

I also want to share another photo that Faas sent me (“courtesy of” the photographer). It shows the press corps in Saigon in 1963:

By Christopher B. Daly

Anyone who has ever ridden the NYC subways has probably thought about it as you stand on the platform waiting for a train. What if some crazy bastard snuck up behind me and pushed me onto the tracks? Could I get back up? Would anyone help me?

Or, perhaps a variation on the theme: What if I see someone else pushed? Will I have the courage to jump down there and help?

The recent tragedy in New York City pushes all these thoughts (and more) into focus. These issues often rise to the forefront when journalists are on-scene. It seems that photojournalists, in particular, are often thrust into these situations, because photographers are so often at or near the scene of terrible things.

This is an issue that I took up in my recent book, Covering America.(pgs 329-330)

Here’s an excerpt that was prompted by the famous photo from the American war in Vietnam that showed a Buddhist monk burning himself to death in protest. (More thoughts after the excerpt)

. . . On June 11, 1963, the Buddhist monks of Vietnam took center stage. For weeks as the crisis built, the AP’s Mal Browne had been filing stories, and he had spent a lot of time in pagodas, interviewing monks and getting a good understanding of  their cause. On the night of June 10 Browne got a call from a contact among the monks, telling him there would be an important development the next morning at a small Saigon pagoda. Several Western correspondents got the same tip, but only a few showed up, including Browne and, later, [David] Halberstam. Only Browne, under the AP photo policy, was carrying a camera. After a while, a 73-year-old Buddhist monk, Thich Quang Duc, went to a busy Saigon intersection and sat down in the lotus position, ringed by hundreds of other monks. Several monks doused him with gasoline, then he struck a match (fig. 11.2). As the flames rose, the monk never flinched. Browne kept working. “Numb with shock,” Browne later recalled, “I shot roll after roll of film, focusing and adjusting exposures mechanically and unconsciously, almost as an athlete chews gum to relieve stress. Trying hard not to perceive what I was witnessing I found myself thinking: ‘The sun is bright and the subject is self-illuminated, so f16 at 125th of a second should be right.’ But I couldn’t close out the smell.” Browne probably could not have intervened once the match was lit, even if he had been prepared. The hundreds of monks would have stopped him.

Malcolm Browne / AP

This incident, like much else that correspondents saw in Vietnam, dramatizes a problem that might be called the Journalist’s Dilemma. For obvious reasons, journalists often witness tragedies and catastrophes. In the course of reporting or shooting photos, they are sometimes confronted by an apparent conflict between continuing to work or stopping to render assistance. Should the journalist step out of the traditional role of observing news and try to help? If the journalist intervenes to prevent a tragedy or to offer aid and comfort to victims, does he or she thus enter the story as a historical actor and give up any claim to practicing journalism (and along with it, perhaps, any First Amendment rights)? Close examination of many cases reveals that the Journalist’s Dilemma is often an illusion. In most instances, the action unfolds so quickly that there is no time for decision making, while in others, the journalist is in fact able to observe the news, record it, and still rise to at least a basic level of humanitarian action. Still, it is in the nature of a dilemma to have no ultimate solution. . .

Like soldiers, cops, EMTs, firefighters and other “first responders,” news reporters and photojournalists often find themselves running toward trouble rather than away from it. As a result, they are often present when bad things happen. This, of course, does not mean that they caused the bad thing, just that they were in the vicinity. Throughout the history of journalism, going at least as far back as Samuel Wilkeson of the New York Times covering the battle of Gettysburg in 1863 and finding the body of his own son among the Union dead, the issue has come up again and again. Here are some notable cases:

Kevin Carter 1993

–There is the story of photographer Kevin Carter, who took a heart-stopping photo of a starving child apparently being stalked by a waiting vulture. That photo, taken in Sudan in 1993, earned him both praise and condemnation. After the photo won the Pulitzer Prize in 1994, Carter took his own life. Here is his NYT obit (written by South Africa correspondent Bill Keller). Few people realize that Carter helped save the girl’s life. His story was later the focus of a film, called “The Death of Kevin Carter: Casualty of the Bang Bang Club.” (Made in 2006 at the Cal-Berkeley School of Journalism.)

–There is the longer version of Mal Browne’s photo of the burning monk. Browne also describes the incident in a segment of a terrific historical PBS video called “Reporting America at War.”

–There is the story behind another famous Vietnam war photo — the “napalm girl” photo of 1972, taken by photojournalist Nick Ut, a Vietnamese native who was working for the AP at the time. As with Kevin Carter, few people who saw this photo ever learned that Ut put his camera down and render aid that probably saved the girl’s life. Here is a version told in part by the AP photo chief in Saigon during the war, the prize-winning photojournalist Horst Faas. The girl, Kim Phuc, survived and moved to Canada. Here is more about her. She was also the subject of a 1999 biography by Denise Chong called The Girl in the Picture. Photographer and subject also met several times.

–More recently, NYTimes photojournalist Tyler Hicks has found himself in the thick of things all throughout Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the countries of the Arab Spring. Hicks, a Pulitzer Prize-winner, was captured in Libya in March 2011. Later, he was with his colleague Anthony Shadid when Shadid died from a severe asthma attack that came on while the two journalists were entering forbidden territory in Syria. Hicks carried his buddy’s body across the border into Turkey. 

–Finally, there is the incomparable James Nachtwey, who has been thinking about these things for a long time. Here are some of his thoughts in a TED talk.

By Christopher B. Daly 

In case you missed it, here is the Washington Post‘s panoramic photo of Obama’s second inaugural, which is quite impressive. (I’m just not crazy about those tags. They take up a lot of space and block a lot of pixels. Maybe there is a better design.)

And if you want to know how it was done, here is an explanation by the Reynolds Journalism Institute at Mizzou.

Can you spot yourself?

By Christopher B. Daly

The intrepid Tyler Hicks, conflict photographer for The New York Times, has made it to Timbuktu, recording the campaign to oust the Islamic militants who briefly held the remote city and the aftermath of the city’s liberation. Hicks (a graduate of the program where I teach at Boston University) has been to all the major hot spots in recent years and has survived a number of threats, including kidnapping. We should all treasure his work:

An ancient manuscript saved from destruction.
Photo by Tyler Hicks / NYT

By Christopher B. Daly

Finally, it’s here: the electronic version of my book about the history of U.S. journalism, Covering America.

Just in time for the anniversary of the rollout of the hardback, this prize-winning book is now available in all major formats:

Nook,

Kindle,

Apple iBook, (This is the format I am checking it out on, and it looks great.)

Google Play,

you name it.

I am very pleased because I know that some folks have been waiting for the e-book. These formats make the book quite a bit cheaper and dramatically lighter! For people who don’t feel drawn to the ~$50 hardcover, here’s your chance to read Covering America. The book won the 2012 Prose Award for Media and Cultural Studies, and it has been selling well and drawing rave reviews (except for one stinker on Amazon — sheesh).

Enjoy it, and write to me about your reactions. You can comment here, or email me: chrisdaly44@gmail.com

By Christopher B. Daly 

A recent obituary reminds us that during World War II, President Roosevelt created and operated a wide-ranging and largely effective program of censorship of all news media. The news is the death, at age 94, of Cal Whipple, who was a Pentagon correspondent for LIFE magazine during the war. It was Whipple who persuaded the military to re-examine its policy of banning photos of dead U.S. servicemen. Eventually, the top brass referred the matter to the president, and Roosevelt personally intervened. (It might have made more sense, of course, for LIFE’s publisher, Henry Luce, to take up the matter with the president — but for the fact that Luce was a Republican and quite a FDR-basher by 1943.) The result of Whipple’s efforts was this stunning photo by LIFE’s George Strock:

Photo by George Strock/ LIFE magazine.

That photo (which I paid Getty Images for the right to use) was followed by many more, all of which brought home the reality of war.

Here is an excerpt from my book, Covering America, about the issue:

   Another special case involved war zone photography. Initially, U.S. military and civilian censors banned the publication of photos showing dead American soldiers or sailors. It was assumed that such images would be bad for civilian morale, and they would probably not bring the troops much cheer either. For twenty months after Pearl Harbor, not a single photo depicting a dead U.S. service member appeared in the news media. Much of the initiative for change came from the editors of Life magazine, which, with a circulation of more than 2.5 million a week,23 had emerged since its founding in 1936 as the nation’s premier showcase for photojournalism. Among its wartime staff were Margaret Bourke-White, Carl Mydans, and Robert Capa. With its large format and glossy paper, Life gave photos their greatest possible impact. In a 1942 advertisement for itself, Life expressed its philosophy: “Never has LIFE glossed over the horrors that stalk in the wake of the Axis aggression, but has shown war as it really is . . . stark, brutal, and devastating.” Even so, the censorship guidelines prevented showing dead GIs, so editors at Life and elsewhere pressed their case for greater candor. In mid-1943 the Roosevelt administration reversed its earlier policy, and in September officials began releasing the first of the somber photos. The most famous was the one printed in Life showing three dead soldiers lying where they had been shot on a beach in New Guinea. The photo, by George Strock, was a masterpiece of composition and understatement. The dead men’s faces were not visible, and their wounds were hidden as well. The editors and the military brass all worried about the public reaction, but they need not have: most letters to Life supported the decision, and there was no measurable drop-off in American support for the war. Ever since, readers on the home front have been given a closer and more realistic look at war. . .

Here is a new  Times “Lens” blog, with more on LIFE magazine photographer George Strock.

Photo by George Strock/ LIFE magazine.

By Christopher B. Daly

Thanks to The Associated Press, there’s a new book of news photographs from the American war in Vietnam that will remind us of all the chaos, confusion, heroism, beauty, and tragedy of those years — as seen through the eyes of AP photographers and correspondents.

From today’s preview in the NYTimes:

Now, amid a flurry of anniversary commemorations of that tumultuous era and a surge of interest in war photography, The A.P. has, for the first time, culled its estimated 25,000 Vietnam photographs and reprinted some 250 in a book, “Vietnam: The Real War,” with an introduction by Pete Hamill, to be published by Abrams on Oct. 1.

Chuck Zoeller, the agency’s manager of special projects, said the dozens of rarely seen photographs in this collection include color plates of United States prisoners of war in a Hanoi prison in 1972 and historical images from the French colonial period. There is a photo of President John F. Kennedy in Florida, reviewing a commando unit back from action as early as 1962. And there are troubling scenes: Vietcong prisoners being kicked and subjected to water torture by South Vietnamese troops. A Vietnamese family of four, dead on a blanket, killed in a stampede as panicked refugees fled the advancing North Vietnamese in 1975.

Several of the most powerful photos from the era appear in my 2012 book, Covering America, because they not only documented the news but in several cases they also made news. They were that powerful. I am thinking of Mal Browne’s photo of a Buddhist monk burning himself to death in 1963 or the photo of the “napalm girl” in 1972 by Nick Ut. 

Here’s another heart-breaking photo from the new compilation, taken by the AP’s photo editor in Vietnam, Horst Faas (who died last year, as did Browne):

A Vietnamese farmer holds the body of his dead child while a group of South Vietnamese soldiers looks on.
Photo: Horst Faas.

And they should get it (much as I would like to side with B.U. alum Pete Souza, the official White House photographer).

Here’s a version.

By Christopher B. Daly 

A hat-tip to journalist and educator Ted Gup for a terrific story about his discovery of a classic work of journalism history — the copy of How the Other Half Lives that was owned and annotated by the author himself, Jacob Riis. As I described him in my book, Covering America, Riis (pronounced rees) was a Danish immigrant to New York City who was shocked and outraged by the conditions he found in the city’s many tenements in the late 19th century. Picking up his notebook and a camera (equipped with a then-new technology — the portable flash), he explored the warrens of tiny, windowless rooms where New York’s newest and most miserable found cheap housing. In buildings lacking heat, ventilation and plumbing, the masses huddled while the wealthy were building ever grander pleasure domes uptown on Fifth Avenue and the rest of the Upper East Side. His work also provided a template for the journalists of the classic “muckraking” movement in the first decade of the 20th Century. 

An important thing to know about Riis’ expose, published in 1890, is that it had an impact. His photos and writing contributed to a political demand for improvements in New York City housing codes, which resulted in concrete improvements in the tenements. The city adopted new building codes that required more light, less crowding and, eventually, heat and plumbing.

In his piece in today’s Times, Gup — an investigative journalist himself who now chairs the Journalism Dept at crosstown Emerson College — describes how he stumbled upon a first edition of How the Other Half Lives that contains Riis’ own handwritten comments and marginalia. He also rightly commends Riis as a “multimedia” journalist for his combining of text and photos (and his use of a flash to light up those dark inner rooms of the tenements).

As many have observed (including the city’s new mayor, Bill DeBlasio), Riis is as relevant as ever, now that New York City is living through another Gilded Age in which wealth is as unevenly distributed as it was in the days of Rockefeller, Morgan, and Hearst.

“The Italian Rag-picker,” by Jacob Riis, from his book, How the Other Half Lives.
Photo from Museum of the City of New York.

By Christopher B. Daly

The remarkable Tyler Hicks seems to have a knack for being present where things happen. Hicks, the NYTimes photojournalist who won a Pulitzer Prize for breaking news this year for his 2013 photos of a mass shooting at a mall in Kenya, just happened to be nearby Wednesday when news broke again. He was staying at a seaside hotel in Gaza when an Israeli rocket struck the beach, killing four young cousins.

In an unusual move, the Times posted a first-person piece by Hicks, in which he described his work. Here’s an excerpt:

I had returned to my small seaside hotel around 4 p.m. to file photos to New York when I heard a loud explosion. My driver and I rushed to the window to see what had happened. A small shack atop a sea wall at the fishing port had been struck by an Israeli bomb or missile and was burning. A young boy emerged from the smoke, running toward the adjacent beach.

I grabbed my cameras and was putting on body armor and a helmet when, about 30 seconds after the first blast, there was another. The boy I had seen running was now dead, lying motionless in the sand, along with three other boys who had been playing there.

By the time I reached the beach, I was winded from running with my heavy armor. I paused; it was too risky to go onto the exposed sand. Imagine what my silhouette, captured by an Israeli drone, might look like as a grainy image on a laptop somewhere in Israel: wearing body armor and a helmet, carrying cameras that could be mistaken for weapons. If children are being killed, what is there to protect me, or anyone else?

I watched as a group of people ran to the children’s aid. I joined them, running with the feeling that I would find safety in numbers, though I understood that feeling could be deceptive: Crowds can make things worse. We arrived at the scene to find lifeless, mangled bodies. The boys were beyond help. They had been killed instantly, and the people who had rushed to them were shocked and distraught.

Here’s the photo the Times posted:

The Times’ caption:
The aftermath of an airstrike on a beach in Gaza City on Wednesday. Four young Palestinian boys, all cousins, were killed. Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

by Christopher B. Daly

Plenty.

The little-known artist Alfred Waud was one of the most important “visual journalists” covering the greatest conflict in American history. Along with the young Winslow Homer and Thomas Nast, Waud was assigned to cover the fighting, including the critical Battle of Gettysburg, by drawing sketches that could quickly be converted into engravings that could be printed along with text in the pages of newspapers like Harper’s Weekly.

Much better known are the photographs of Mathew Brady (and his less-well-known team of assistants). But Brady’s photos, for all their power and terribly beauty, all suffered from the technical limitations of the mid-19th century. In order for the chemical emulsions used in photography to leave an impression on the glass or metal plates, the camera’s shutter had to be left open for a comparatively long time — at least several seconds. As a result, cameras in the Civil War era were unable to stop action. If the subject was moving, the image would be blurred.

So, it fell to sketch artists to capture any scene involving motion or action.

Sketch of action at Gettysburg by Alfred Waud for Harper’s Weekly.
Library of Congress.

Now, a professor at Northern Kentucky University has used a Waud sketch to try to learn more about the crucial fighting that took place in Gettysburg, Pa., from July 1 to July 3, 1865. Emeritus Prof. Michael C.C. Adams argues that the sketch by Waud can be used to deduce the distance at which the opposing forces opened fire on each other. Many more Waud sketches can be found online or at the Library of Congress.

In the history of journalism, those Civil War sketches are some of the first examples of illustrating the news in a documentary fashion. Hats off to those brave sketch artists who got right up to the front lines armed with nothing more than a palette and some chalk.

Alfred Waud, at Gettysburg.
Library of Congress

By Christopher B. Daly 

Where will the new Hong Kong protests lead? Hard to say.

For decades, it has been widely assumed that if there were a serious blow delivered against the regime in China, it would fall at Tiananmen Square, the huge paved space in Beijing linking one of the ancient seats of power (the Forbidden City) and the current seat of power (the Great Hall of the People). Tiananmen, which was the site of the last serious challenge to the government in 1989, is tightly guarded by soldiers, undercover cops, and surveillance cameras.

But it may be that the government’s unsleeping gaze (like the Eye of Sauron) is looking in the wrong place. In faraway Hong Kong, young protesters are demanding the right to vote for their leaders — a demand that the regime in Beijing cannot possibly grant. Having taking Hong Kong back from the British in 1997, I believe that the Chinese have no intention of fulfilling their promise to allow Hong Kong residents to elect their leaders by 2017. The young demonstrators are challenging the government directly, which could force a showdown that will demand the world’s attention.

Follow the unfolding coverage in the NYTimes, the South China Morning Post, the Guardian, the BBC. Some terrific early photos are here at NYT.

Any other good sources, with independent, on-the-ground reporters and photographers?

By Christopher B. Daly

This weekend marked the general release of the terrific new film “Spotlight,” about the team of investigative journalists at the Boston Globe who broke the prize-winning story about the widespread abuse of children by Catholic priests. The film, as I noted in my review, is a much-needed valentine to traditional news media, praising their willingness to use their resources in pursuit of telling the truth and holding the powerful accountable.

“Spotlight” is already being hailed (to use a bit of journalese) as one of the best films of all time about journalism. Which raises the question:

What are the best films about journalism?

Here’s my annotated list:

[I like all of these films, for one reason or another, so I am not ranking them. Instead, they are arranged chronologically, which makes some interesting points about the evolving view of journalists over time. I had never noticed how many of these come in clusters, which must be a lagging indicator of something.]

I COVER THE WATERFRONT (1933)

Claudette Colbert plays a smuggler’s daughter who is being investigated by a reporter, played by Ben Lyon. Complications naturally ensue. Fun fact: The title song was recorded by Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra and others.

HIS GIRL FRIDAY (1940)

Dir. Howard Hawks. My personal favorite. Watch Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell at the top of their games in a romp through Chicago journalism of the 1920s. HGF features an epically dense screenplay, as the two leads constantly talk over each other. One memorable zinger after another. From the play, “The Front Page,” written by journalists Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur.

FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT (1940)

Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. Joel McCrea plays a young American reporter in London on the eve of WWII, trying to expose enemy agents (as all good journalists just naturally do!). Ben Hecht is one of the writers, though uncredited.

CITIZEN KANE (1941)

The cinematic masterpiece from Orson Welles, who wrote, directed and starred. It’s a thinly veiled biography of William Randolph Hearst, who hated it and did all he could (which was a lot) to try to suppress it. Welles gets the last laugh. Screenplay co-credit goes to Herman J. Mankiewicz.

WOMAN OF THE YEAR (1942)

The first of the nine Hepburn/Tracy films. Two rival reporters meet cute and marry not-so-cute. Kate Hepburn plays a version of the real-life columnist Dorothy Thompson. Spencer Tracy wishes his globe-trotting, multi-lingual wife were home a bit more often. Ring Lardner Jr. shares screenwriting credit.

GENTLEMAN’S AGREEMENT (1947)

Gregory Peck plays a journalist who decides to investigate anti-semitism by pretending to be Jewish himself. Peck at his righteous best. Screenplay by Moss Hart, based on novel by Laura Z. Hobson.

CALL NORTHSIDE 777 (1948)

Jimmy Stewart, who knew his way around a fedora, plays a Chicago reporter who re-opens a cold murder case in this film-noir drama.

SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS (1957)

Burt Lancaster, depicts gossip columnist Walter Winchell. Tony Curtis, plays an oily, sycophantic p.r. agent. A noir masterpiece that explores the careers of people who don’t know how not to manipulate others. One of the screenwriting credits goes to playwright Clifford Odets.

ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN (1976)

The essential celebration of investigative reporting, starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. The film dramatizes the real-life reporting of the Washington Post reporters that led to the downfall of President Nixon. Screenwriter William Goldman wrote the best line, uttered by Hal Holbrook, playing “Deep Throat” in a dark and empty parking garage: “Follow the money.”

NETWORK (1976)

Dir: Sidney Lumet. Starring: Faye Dunaway and William Holden. Featuring Peter Finch for his memorable freak-out live on television, urging viewers to join him in ranting: “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” Writer: Paddy Chayefsky

THE CHINA SYNDROME (1979)

Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon, and a bearded Michael Douglas star in this drama about white-hat journalists exposing safety problems at a nuclear power plant. Very much in the shadow of the Three Mile Island incident of the same year.

ABSENCE OF MALICE (1981)

Dir. Sydney Pollack. Sally Field plays a young reporter who libels Paul Newman (horrors) by publishing leaked information about him that is false and harmful to his reputation. This one causes a lot of journalists to squirm.

THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY (1982)

Dir. Peter Weir. Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver. Australian reporter, assisted by Linda Hunt, covers Indonesia during a period of turmoil and finds time to romance Sigourney Weaver. Could be Gibson’s career high.

THE KILLING FIELDS (1984)

Sam Waterston depicting NYTimes correspondent Sydney Shanberg covering Cambodia during the appalling regime of the Khmer Rouge. Terrific performance by first-time actor Haing S. Ngor, portraying the Cambodian photojournalist Dith Pran.

BROADCAST NEWS (1987)

Dir. James L. Brooks. A romantic triangle involving William Hurt, Albert Brooks, and their boss, the incomparable Holly Hunter. Set in a television newsroom, the main characters manage to address real journalistic issues without preachy speeches. Written by James L. Brooks, no relation to Albert. (who also wrote the newsroom-based TV shows Mary Tyler Moore and Lou Grant).

THE PAPER (1994)

Dir: Ron Howard (formerly Opie on Mayberry). Michael Keaton plays Henry Hackett, the city editor of a NYC tabloid, in a day-in-the-life about a journalist’s crusade for the truth at any cost: major fight with wife, lost job at the New York Times, etc. Highlight: the knock-down brawl with Glenn Close.

WAG THE DOG (1997)

Dir. Barry Levinson. An acidic satire of Washington’s manipulation of the mass media. Starring Robert DeNiro as a political operative who enlists a Hollywood producer (Dustin Hoffman) to gin up a photogenic war to divert public attention from scandal. Hoffman envisions was as “a pageant.” From the book by Larry Beinhart.

FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS (1998)

Dir.: Terry Gilliam.

Benicio del Toro plays Dr. Gonzo himself. In a masterpiece of understatement, IMDb tries to gets its arms around this film this way: “An oddball journalist and his psychopathic lawyer travel to Las Vegas for a series of psychedelic escapades.” That about sums it up. From the book by HST.

THE INSIDER (1999)

Starring Russell Crowe and Al Pacino. Based on CBS investigation into Big Tobacco. Crowe plays a chemist-turned-whistleblower, and Pacino plays TV producer Lowell Bergman as a blow-hard. Christopher Plummer portrays a TV reporter based on Mike Wallace of CBS’s “60 Minutes” – who did not appreciate the insinuation that he pulled punches. Based on Marie Brenner’s article in Vanity Fair called “The Man Who Knew Too Much.”

 ALMOST FAMOUS (2000)

Writer/director Cameron Crowe wonders what it would have been like to be a teenager who gets to write a story for Rolling Stone that involves traveling with a rock band on tour. Starring Kate Hudson as the allusive groupie Penny Lane.

SHATTERED GLASS (2003)

The sad, miserable story of some guy (I don’t want to even use his name) who bamboozled his editors at The New Republic for an unforgivably long time. The guy’s story pitches were too good to be true, alas. Partial writing credit: journalist Buzz Bissinger.

CAPOTE (2005) 

In one of his last major roles, Philip Seymour Hoffman does a star turn as the writer Truman Capote as he undertakes the reporting that turned into the non-fiction novel “In Cold Blood.” Catherine Keener plays the young Nelle Harper, Capote’s sidekick and better known as the author Harper Lee of “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK (2005)

Dir. George Clooney. David Straithairn plays Edward R. Murrow in this heroic biopic. Good as far as it goes, but it pulls punches on what happened to Murrow after he took on Sen. Joseph McCarthy. (CBS sidelined Murrow because he was too overtly political.) Clooney wrote it, too.

THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA (2006)

Meryl Streep plays an imperious editor of a woman’s high-fashion magazine (a la Anna Wintour at Vogue), and Anne Hathaway plays her plucky assistant. Terrific cast.

FROST/NIXON (2008)

A dramatization of the real-life interviews conducted by British talk-show host David Frost with disgraced former president Richard Nixon (see “All the President’s Men”). Frank Langella turns in a very credible Nixon. Fun fact: the role played by Oliver Platt in the film was played in real life by former BU Journalism professor Bob Zelnick.

STATE OF PLAY (2009)

Replacing Brad Pitt (who backed out), Russell Crowe plays an old-school Washington reporter covering the death of a congressional aide, with help from perky blogger Rachel McAdams, who tries to teach the old dog Crowe some new reporting tricks found on this thing called the Internet. Fun cameos of actual DC reporters, including Woodward.

SPOTLIGHT (2015)

Dir. Tom McCarthy. With help from screenwriter Josh Singer, McCarthy delivers an appreciative bouquet to traditional “accountability” journalism. Based on the true story of the Pulitzer-winning investigative reporting team at the Boston Globe who exposed the rampant sexual abuse and extensive cover-up within the Boston Catholic archdiocese.

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Honorable mention, TV series:

The Wire, Season 5

Newsroom

Lou Grant

Superman (George Reeves)

See a mild-mannered reporter at The Daily Planet, Clark Kent, turn into a righteous super hero. If only all reporters could be caped crusaders.

Honorable mention, documentaries:

Reporting America at War

Control Room

Around the World in 72 Days

Outfoxed

[For more info, see the website Image of Journalism in Popular Culture at USC]