2025 - Summer

4-Week Toolkit: Journalism Goes to the Movies (2-credit) (7/8 – 7/31)

Course Number: SS0: JOUR-UA 25.TK

Day & Time: Tuesdays: 4:00-6:00 pm; Thursdays: 4:00-8:00 pm

Location: 20 Cooper Sq.

Albert Class Number: TK

This four-week course explores the genre of “journalism movies,” from postwar to present, to understand the symbiotic relationship between the news media and film industry. From the early days of Hollywood, moviemakers have seen journalists as protagonists with tantalizing promise, much like detectives who not only ask questions but have the skills to “follow the money,” or uncover things and make sense of them. But what lessons can we learn from films like All the President’s Men, Spotlight and September 5? What questions do they raise about this high and noble calling, and its role in shaping film culture? In each class, we will screen a movie that follows reporters whose occupation is central to the storyline. One week might be a dark exposé of the media’s appetite for sensation; the next might take us inside the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation that ignited the MeToo movement. Following the movie, a guest speaker will join the class for a conversation about the key themes, including using documentary techniques to enhance fiction storytelling. We will survey the contemporary movie journalism landscape and delve into essential critical works by François Truffaut, Pauline Kael, Peter Bogdanovich and Nora Ephron. Students will be given in-class exercises and reading/writing assignments.