A lot has been said, written and watched about Bharka Dutt, Vir Sanghvi and Niira Radia. This made me go think about ethical journalism and check my memory of movies that describe a similar struggle.
The first one that comes to my mind is timeless classic All the President's men in which Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford wonderfully bring out the struggle journalist undergo to collect information and the extent to which they risk their lives to gather evidence before they publish a story. The next one is of course Wag the Dog in which Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman tell us how a manipulated promo and marketing can make or break a country's top leadership positions.
In Tamil, we had Oomai vizhigal an with Jayshankar, the newspaper editor struggles to uncover the mystery behind beach resort murders of chennai. Page3 is another excellent effort from Madhur Bhandakar in the same lines. Then we have the latest offering from Aamir Khan, Peepli live which showcases the brutal realities of today's Media. This list would not be complete without mentioning about Alaigal a TV serial which I watched in my childhood days. Sivakumar is at his best as the publisher of a newspaper in it.
My own post in this blog talks about yet another fictional movie about the same topic. In the edited versions in front of the camera, we see the shows where journos and anchors grill the opponents and we even feel that they go overboard to sensitize the issues. But in reality (and as all the above movies depict) it looks like the politicians, corporates and nay their lobbyists are the ones actually in control of the media !
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