Broadcast News

Paper #3: Broadcast News

Broadcast News (1987) is a film about three very different journalists who fall into a workplace love triangle. The film opens with scenes portraying these three future news anchors in their childhood. Tom was a young man who, no matter how hard he tried; struggled in school. Aaron’s childhood scene was about him giving (what seems to be) a valedictorian speech. Right after, he is beaten up by three bullies whom he insults saying they will never be as successful as he will be. Jane has always been a workaholic as she would spend hours on her typewriter as a very young child. Ultimately, these scenes show how they will be in the future. Tom would be a news anchor not really knowing what he is doing. He is only taken into the company national television company because of his looks and charm and nothing else. Jane would be somebody who would always stand for what she thinks is right. She is also a very straightforward person as she would tell you straight up what she thinks: even if it could hurt. This is seen in a lot of scenes such as the scene where she tells Tom that he is not doing anything about his insecurities. She’s a workaholic who would always do her work and attempt to perfect it up to the final minute. Aaron was an insecure person about what others would say about him. He was undoubtedly smart and was bullied as a kid. These traits would all carry into the future as he would be an excellent but undermined news anchor. He’s intelligent, not very charming as seen way back into his high school days, and always cared about what others think about him.

Tom would be a mess that Jane would always fix. It was quite a recurring theme in the film. Aaron was insecure and hated Tom. Aaron obviously admires Jane a lot while Jane has feelings for Tom despite her kind of hating him. It’s a love-hate relationship between Jane and Tom.

From what I’ve seen, a TV newsroom is a lot more organized than a newspaper newsroom. Despite this, the tension is still there as the time pressure is always a constant in a newsroom. There’s a lot more papers in a newspaper newsroom but the similarities are still there. The stress seems like something journalists always face. The TV reporters are also very different from the newspaper journalists as sometimes, TV reporters have to be there to shoot their content whilst in the newspaper you don’t really have to. In a newspaper solely information is needed.

There were plenty of dilemmas/ conflict points/ difficulties these three faced aside from their entertaining, fun to watch love triangle. Examples are how they chose Tom: a person who doesn’t really know what he’s doing, over Aaron who has proven himself worthy as he is intelligent. One major difference between newspaper and television news is that apparently: based on the film, charm really does matter. You have to be appealing. Tom is repeatedly chosen over Aaron because of his charm, such as the breaking news about the Libyan attack on a United States base, the boss choosing who to fire from the company because of the massive budget cuts, and even in love. Ethical dilemmas were also seen as Tom faked crying because of the date rape news to appeal to the viewers’ feelings.

I learned in the film that no matter what, being a journalist is not an easy task. You have always dig deep for information to share to the world which is not exactly easy. Something you need in being a television news anchor is charm. I guess you really need to appeal to the viewers to succeed in being a great news anchor. Mike Enriquez is an example. He is not really handsome, but he has his own appeal. He has a unique style of reporting that nobody else has. That is the thing. One needs to stand out to succeed in television news reporting. Information needs to be precise and true. You need to take the extra step to find out if the information really is true as a journalist.