Friday, August 02, 2013. Last Update: Fri 2:50 PM EST

Critical Eye

Call Northside 777 (1948)

Real journalism is too boring for the movies

In an early scene of the 1948 film Call Northside 777, Jimmy Stewart, who plays a reporter at the Chicago... More

The Parallax View (1974)

(Sometimes) Good Guys Finish Last: Pakula’s sober counterpoint to All The President’s Men

It’s the Fourth of July in Seattle. We’re on the scene with Lee Carter, a young television reporter, who is... More

Good Night, and Good Luck (2005)

What happened to TV news?

The marketing team behind Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), a biopic of Edward R. Murrow set largely amid the... More

Newsies (1992)

“Headlines don’t sell papes; newsies sell papes”

Before Christian Bale became Batman, he was Jack Kelly, a newspaper boy with a dream in his heart and calluses... More

Ace in the Hole (1951)

What a sixty-year-old noir can tell us about the Murdoch hacking scandal

I’ve got Murdoch on the brain, but I couldn’t help thinking about the News of the World scandal while watching... More

Searching for D.B. Cooper

Geoffrey Gray joins the hunt for the vanishing bandit

Skyjack: The Hunt for D.B. Cooper| By Geoffrey Gray | Crown | 302 pages, $25.00 In the winter of 1971,... More

Your Summer Movie Picks

Journalism-themed films recommended by CJR’s readers

Through these difficult times for journalism we could all use a little inspiration and a little fun. How about a... More

Almost Famous (2000)

Who’s afraid of Rolling Stone?

Beware, beware, Rolling Stone magazine... Music, inarguably, is the hero, the emotional engine in Almost Famous, the Cameron Crowe-written, -directed... More

The Big Clock (1948)

A murderous publisher’s corporate noir

The Big Clock begins, as all stories about a desperate journalist ought to, with a drunken night. Charles Stroud, a... More

Absence of Malice (1981)

When bad journalism kills

When I was a student in journalism school, in the beginning of my first semester, one of the professors of... More

The Year of Living Dangerously (1982)

A group of hollow career fetishists and a moralizing dwarf

At the 1983 Academy Awards, a four-foot-nine dynamo of a New York stage actress named Linda Hunt took home the... More

Q&A: Sebastian Junger on Tim Hetherington

“The ultimate truth about war is that you are guaranteed to lose your brothers.”

It’s not often that one sees characters from a film gather to mourn a filmmaker. On May 24, soldiers from... More

Superman

The Man of Steel has better things to do than be a reporter

When watching Superman (1978), I was reminded of the David Carradine rant from the end of Kill Bill: Vol. 2,... More

The Devil Wears Prada

The first entry in CJR’s summer movie club

The Devil Wears Prada is a film that exists two beats apart from reality. At least. Based on the book... More

Mad Men: Jon Ronson’s The Psychopath Test

A travelogue of insanity with the author of Them

The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through The Madness Industry | by Jon Ronson | Riverhead | 288 pages, $25.95 Jon... More

Old TNR vs. New TNR

In one tweet

Luke Russert is the Golden Boy of DC

And it drives young journalists crazy

Oh, #Florida!

Why does Florida produce so much weird news? Experts explain

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Who Owns What

The Business of Digital Journalism

A report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism

Study Guides

Questions and exercises for journalism students.