(except, of course, for hookers with hearts of gold)

What with the simultaneous crops of movies about journalists (‘Capote’, ‘Good Night, And Good Luck’, ‘King Kong’, sorta) and high-profile journalism-related scandals (Judith Miller, Judith Miller, and, uh, Judith Miller), lazier cultural critics have tried to synthesize these two blips into a thesis about How America Feels About Journalists And How They’re Represented In The Popular Culture. In today’s NYT, the usually reliable David Carr takes a stab, arguing that Hollywood uses reporters as convienent punching bags in movies. Here’s his weirdest assertion:

Hollywood renders many professions as cartoons – pity the lawyers, if you can – but part of the reason that the news media are held in such low esteem is that they are cast as such. The editor in “Batman” who is constantly doing anything he can to sell newspapers is not seen as a cartoon by the public; he is seen as a proxy.

Really? Anyway, it may be true that Hollywood’s portrayal of journalists is predominantly negative. But is there a profession (besides, I guess, Jedi Knight) that gets portrayed particularly positively in most movies?

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