GEORGE MF WASHINGTON: The ‘Heroes’ of the Fourth Estate.

Other than Westerns, Courtroom Dramas and Cop Thrillers, this was one of Hollywood’s favorite go-to genres. They were so popular in the Biz that we used to have a joke that if you were serious about getting nominated for an Oscar, your best bet was to make a movie about the Holocaust or a Journalist. Many of the movies in that latter category, “All The President’s Men”, “The Insider”, “The Killing Fields” and “Absence of Malice” to name just a few, are among the finest films ever made and were indeed nominated for a slew of Oscars.

As the 2000’s turned into the 2020’s and Hollywood jettisoned one classic genre after another in the pursuit of cost savings and corporate billion dollar blockbuster-making, the heroic Journalist story remained one of the few classic adult drama genres that Hollywood seemed unable to quit. There is no doubt in my mind that this was because, in the character of the heroic journalist bravely speaking truth to power, Hollywood saw themselves… unafraid storytellers courageously pushing forbidden narratives out into a hopelessly troglodytic America that didn’t want to hear them.

There’s just one problem with that… here at the beginning of 2025, journalists occupy a space on the popularity spectrum somewhere between pond scum and crotch rot.

Hollywood, too — and do read the whole thing.