Depiction Of The Editorial Business In The Movie “The Paper” Directed By Ron Howard

The news has a strong impact of how we gather information on certain topics. The newspaper has been one of the oldest ways of mass communication for the news. Newspapers were easily accessible and cheap, costing as low as a penny. The movie, “The Paper” directed by Ron Howard was to capture what it felt like to be in an apart the newsroom. The movie portrays the editorial business office as a hectic and loud place to be in New York City. Constant amount of new information being presented at any given time can flip any story on its head. The chapter that reflects my movie is on chapter 4, Newspapers.

The story follows around a man named Henry Hackett who is an editor for the “New York Sun” and takes the audience inside a “typical” day being a news reporter. The movies' story follows 2 young black teens were found fleeing a crime scene which involved 2 old white business people. Two teens were soon apprehended and sent to jail, even though the 2 teens did not commit this crime. During, this Henry steals confidential information on the two-innocence teens who were wrongly convicted and trying to figure out who actually committed the crime, all while at a job interview for The Sentienel. Then it becomes a wild puzzle to put the story together while we watch how these editors write groundbreaking stories every day. In early stages of the newspaper the main goal for competing tabloids was to attract more consumers than the other competitor, while also producing newspapers more efficiently. This can come from either an interesting front page story or getting the most interesting story first in the fastest way possible, rather than making sure if the source is correct.

Some businesses knew this at the early stages of its development and started publishing overly dramatic stories for consumers to be interested in reading one of their newspaper. The movie depicts this concept as well as in the books term as, yellow journalism, which as the characters in the story would describe their stories were sensational or over-dramatic. In the movie, the head editorial of the “New York Sun” calls everyone to his office to come up with new ideas for the next day’s headline story. The group of employees then all rush to give their stories on the front headline, ” ‘Nazi’s marching in New Jersey, '' Watergate scandal, '' terrorist attack in Paris killed 5; 2 Rhode Island witnesses. ’” The editors working there are desperate for a story to publish for the company. These were the human-interest stories that the editors thought the people would want to read. With struggle of original ideas, the newer generation of editors nowadays make these headline stories by the “use of lurid features and sensationalized news in newspaper publishing to attract readers and increase circulation”. The quote explains that the editors put stories that get published, can often deceive the audience. The audience is already vague on information being brought to them since the tabloid is the peoples source.

Tabloids being often labeled as yellow journalist were the editors who preferred human interest stories over global issues during the 1960s eras, which did not mind some of the tabloids since because that’s what got that company got successful. Yellow journalism has faded throughout the years and has been misinterpreted for being “fake news” nowadays. With the fake news, the news people can get is 2 sided not just black and white which some news outlets think so. The movie depicts this by all yellow journalism is not bad and can often lead people to become a great journalist. The competition for companies selling newspapers was very hard and never ending. Each tabloid trying there hardest to get the most interesting story, the fastest way possible. Newspapers company wanted to keep revolutionizing their ways of transmitting their news. This led them to invent the wire service while selling the hard copy, the newspaper. The wire service concept goal was to provide the middle class with the news. The transmission of news globally shaped the world by widening everyone perception on what events are happening during that period.

In the movie, the movie opens to a radio speaking about The New York Sun radio is bringing their daily service to its people. While, also something they highlighted in the movie because the radio station says “your whole world can change after 24 hours” in the beginning and end. The director of the movie wanted to emphasize that news is an important and is constantly happening around a person. That person should have the ability to and accessibility to this news. The wire service in a movie brought 24-hour radio broadcasting of new news every morning at 7am. This was there major point they wanted to get to the people, that the people have access to these stories and know when new stories will come out. Ken Wincko, svp of marketing for Cision and PR Newswire also came out and said, “By distributing a release through a wire service, companies are able to cast a broader net that reaches beyond their already established base audience”.

Journalist and some editors during the time of this movie were seen to have characteristics of having American journalism values. This can collide with outside factors that might have conflict with a number of things. The outside factor that causes a major conflict throughout the entire movie is the “deadline”. The manager of the tabloid throughout the movie continues to say that if no one can come up with a better story before the deadline then the headline “Gotcha”, which was not getting the “right” story. This persuaded the main character, henry to prove that the teens were framed and that they should be set free due to their human rights. “In the end, the discipline of verification is what separates journalism from entertainment, propaganda, fiction, or art…. Journalism alone is focused first on getting what happened down right…. The willingness of the journalist to be transparent about what he or she has done is at the heart of establishing that the journalist is concerned with the truth”. Henry opened his manager’s eyes by interpreting that she has lost all aspects of what it means to be journalist. The importance of ensuring a story is correct not shows how big of an impact it can make on someone’s life. This one news story on the two-teenager changed the whole cast in the movie in all different ways. The two teenagers ended up being set free, Henry keeps his job to pay for his family, and Annie realizes what it means to work and run a tabloid.

The newspaper industry has evolved from its traditional black and white papers delivered to your front door every morning. A familiar sight is still seen in modern day but this can be seen as inefficient, by paying a kid to deliver to newspapers on his bike. News is all digital now and can be found online, searching the web can have official PDF copies of newspapers for that specific day the company publishes them and often just found on the newspaper official website. The shift has been shown to have both positive and negative effects on us. Implications of new outlets of getting your news results in faster and more accessible news stories. On the other hand, with so many news outlets claiming as a “reliable source” we must ask the question, which news company can we trust for our news and which ones are “unreliable”?