A Novel and Hollywood Look at Female Journalists

September 1999  -  The thin line between what is news and what is entertainment is becoming more blurred.  Even the news program 60 Minutes will soon be the setting of a new movie, with actor Christopher Plummer playing the role of reporter Mike Wallace. For many people, their views of newsrooms and journalists are shaped by films and novels.  This fall, communication professor Sammye Johnson will teach a course that analyzes the ways in which journalists, specifically women reporters, are viewed by society. The course, "Women Journalists in Film and Novel," will examine how accurate and realistic female reporters are portrayed on the big screen as well as how these portrayals have affected the way society perceives the media as a whole. The films viewed during the semester include The Front Page, a quintessential journalism movie, The China Syndrome, Broadcast News, and Up Close and Personal, which is loosely based on the life of the late journalist Jessica Savitch.  The class will also discuss the way writers such as Barbara Taylor Bradford, Sally Quinn, and Mary Higgins Clark have portrayed women journalists. To counterbalance these fictional portrayals, Johnson offers lessons from her own life.  "I include personal stories from my own experiences as a newspaper reporter in Chicago during the early 1970s," says Johnson.  To speak to Johnson about the course contact Russell Guerrero at (210) 999-8406 or by e-mail at rguerrer@trinity.edu.

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Last updated on June 7, 2000 by the Office of Public Relations