Barbara Walters was the first woman to anchor a television news program for a national audience in 1976. Before that, she earned her stripes writing ad copy, press releases and magazine features. She eventually became a writer for CBS where the legendary Don Hewitt told her she'd never make it in broadcasting. She who laughs, lasts, right? Barbara Walters eventually became an award-winning broadcast journalist and celebrity in her own right, hosting hundreds of prime-time "personality" and "scoop journalism" programs. Margaret Thatcher, Richard Nixon, Fidel Castro, Anwar Al Sadat, O.J. Simpson, Katherine Hepburn, and Taylor Swift are just a few of the global figures that she interviewed. Known for asking uncomfortable questions to powerful people unaccustomed to personal interrogations, Barbara Walters persisted in her distinctive style of reportage, critics be damned. Barbara Walters' 60+ year career set so many standards and broke so many barriers that we think the next pressing questions ought to be: When is the Barbara Walters biopic coming out? Will it be seven hours long to cover all of her accomplishments? We can't wait to see it!
First-rate movies about the news often have some wonderfully caustic personalities, thrilling hunts for evidence and fascinating sources! It's the perfect weekend to pop some popcorn, dim the lights and put on a movie. Check out our January staff-picks display of flicks that make our hearts thump as we follow along the beats of our favorite Hollywood reporters.
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Philomena /
Based on the 2009 investigative book by BBC correspondent Martin Sixsmith, The Lost Child of Philomena Lee, Philomena focuses on the efforts of Philomena Lee (Dench), mother to a boy conceived out of wedlock--something her Irish-Catholic community didn't have the highest opinion of--and given away for adoption in the United States. In following church doctrine, she was forced to sign a contract that wouldn't allow for any sort of inquiry into the son's whereabouts. After starting a family years later in England and, for the most part, moving on with her life, Lee meets Sixsmith (Coogan), a BBC reporter with whom she decides to discover her long-lost son. |
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Ace in the hole /
When a man is trapped alive in a mine collapse, an amoral, down-on-his-luck reporter takes over and prolongs the rescue effort in order to make a name for himself |
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French Dispatch /
An anthology film comprising a collection of stories presumably published by the French bureau of a fictional American magazine |
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Truth /
The last days of new anchor Dan Rather and producer Mary Mapes time at CBS News after they broadcasted what became a highly controversial news report about George W. Bush and his military service |
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All the president's men
The story of two young reporters of the Washington Post who picked up the Watergate story from the beginning and stayed with it through doubts, denials and discouragements |
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Broadcast news
A caustic inside look at the Washington news media, stars Holly Hunter in her breakout role, as a feisty television producer torn between an ambitious yet dim anchorman and her closest confidant, a cynical veteran reporter. James L. Brooks' witty, gently prophetic entertainment is a captivating transmission from an era in which ideas on love and media were rapidly changing. |
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Christine /
Dramatizes the story of Christine Chubbuck, the twenty-nine-year-old news reporter who killed herself on live television in 1974 |
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Post /
Follows the events surrounding the 1971 release of the Pentagon Papers by newspaper publisher Kay Graham and her editor Ben Bradlee of the Washington Post, revealing that the U.S. government knew for years the Vietnam War was unwinnable |
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Shattered Glass
"Stephen Glass was a staff writer for the respected current events and policy magazine The New Republic and a freelance feature writer for Rolling Stone, Harper's and George. By the mid-90's, Glass' articles had turned him into one of the most sought-after young journalists in Washington, but a bizarre chain of events suddenly stopped his career in its tracks. Shattered Glass is a study of a very talented and, at the same time, very flawed character. Stephen Glass was a part of our culture's noblest profession, one that protects our most precious freedoms by revealing the truth." |
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Spotlight /
A team of investigative reporters for the Boston Globe work to expose decades of sexual abuse by Catholic priests and cover-ups of the crimes by the Catholic Church |
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Vengeance / When a radio host and writer receives a phone call telling him that a woman he once hooked up with is dead, he decides to travel from New York City to her hometown in Texas to attend her funeral and investigate the circumstances of her death, hoping to gathermaterial for his future podcast |
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Good night, and good luck
A dramatization of the real-life conflict between television newsman Edward R. Murrow and Senator Joseph McCarthy when Murrow and the dedicated CBS newsstaff were determined to expose the scare tactics perpetrated by McCarthy during his communist witch-hunts |
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Passenger [videorecording] / produced by Carlo Ponti; directed by Michelangelo Antonioni; written by Michelangelo Antonioni, Mark Peploe, Peter Wollen
A reporter travels to North Africa to cover the guerilla freedom-fighters and ends up taking the identity of a dead man in order to escape his personal problems |
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Cry freedom
Story of the horrors of apartheid, based on the true story of the friendship between white newspaper reporter Donald Woods and South African Black activist Stephen Biko |