An unrealistic take on newspaper life is set to become yesterday's fish-and-chip paper, writes ANN MARIE HOURIHANE
STATE OF PLAYis a film set in America, and all about the redemptive power of journalism. To say that this is strange timing is to understate the case. Newspapers everywhere are under various pressures – vanishing advertising revenue, the internet, Google grabbing all their copy without paying a dime – and folding, as it were, at an alarming rate.
Recently Phil Bronstein, editor-at-large of the San Francisco Chronicle, told New York Timescolumnist Maureen Dowd that only old people will continue to read newspapers: "That's the most hopeful thing you can say about print journalism, that people are living longer," said Mr Bronstein, who did not go on to explain exactly what an editor-at-large is – and with the way things are going, it is quite possible we will never know.
So it's kind of interesting to be a middle-aged journalist watching State of Play, which stars Russell Crowe as a journalist, Cal McCaffrey, so old-fashioned that he leaves the office to do his research.
Cal drives a battered Saab, in American films always a sure sign of integrity. The interior of the Saab is realistically filthy, and reverberates to horrible Irish music. And Cal, overweight and shambolic, would bring tears of nostalgia to any NUJ eye. Nowadays male journalists are thin and pretty, bless them.
In State of Play, it is the politician, played by the gorgeously handsome Ben Affleck, who is thin and pretty and named – Irish Timesreaders will appreciate this – Stephen Collins.
Research is not a luxury on which the makers of State of Playexpended very much of their budget. Here is a newspaper where the female editor, played by Helen Mirren, uses obscene language (most unlikely). Where the news editor gives his reporter the peace sign (in my experience, quite the other way round). Where young female reporters sob on the shoulder of their older male colleagues, seeking to take advantage of their age and experience (again, in my experience, quite the other way round).
We will skip over the scenes in which Cal glides past his deadline, and delays the paper, with no capital punishment ensuing. We shall pass over the scenes where our hero is finally writing his story, lovingly watched by his colleagues, by his news editor and the female editor, who is holding her evening bag and obviously has other places to go.
We shall not linger on the exchange where the news editor asks mildly "Got copy for me, Cal?" and then wanders away contentedly when told by the reporter he has not. We shall not linger either on the opening scene, in which a senior reporter attends the discovery of the bodies of two anonymous young men who were gunned down in the street. We shall not worry about the fact that State Of Playis set in a Washington where there are hardly any black people, let alone a black president.
No, we shall focus on Cal McCaffrey’s first macho entrance into his newsroom. Obviously the news editor wants to talk to our hero. Behind them a weedy feature writer is trying to get the news editor’s attention, for a story he has written about a hamster who has survived great hardship. The two macho newsmen ignore the feature writer completely, and the film holds his idea of the heroic hamster up to scorn. But, as someone who has worked the hamster side of the street for much of her professional life, I would like to point out that it is the journalists who have written heartwarming stories about animals who’ve made the serious money in recent years.
The news machine is dying. The future for journalists lies in columns and books like Marley & Me, which has made millions on the posthumous story of a Labrador.
You're playing with young minds, you see, when you portray a job on screen. The censors once believed that films could cause serious social trouble, and they were right. It was just that the censors were concentrating on the wrong topics – sex, violence – and were only concerned with the short-term effects of film. They were worried that a lustful girl would come out of the cinema and knock a middle-aged man to the ground, after seeing Last Tango in Paris, for example. That never happened, as far as we know.
No, the far-reaching damage was done by other films. It would be interesting to see how many of the traders who have got us into so much trouble recently had watched Wall Streetin their youth.
It would be fascinating to know how many of our Garda Síochána, currently cruising around in their squad cars on their way to the local chipper, were fans of the Lethal Weaponseries starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover. Or how many of our sad gangsters viewed The Godfatherand Scarfaceat a vulnerable adolescent moment.
It was that excellent film, All the President's Men, which sent thousands of impressionable young people into journalism. Let's hope that State Of Play– which, by the way, will make much less money than the film Marley & Me– doesn't do the same.