PG | 1 h 56 min | Drama | 1981
Do the wealthy have the same rights as those lower down the social or economic ladder, to be treated as innocent until proven guilty? Should the public, who consume news stories, be burdened with separating mere facts from the truth? Isn’t that the job of journalists? Is it vital to seek confirmation before breaking a story, or is a hint of truth enough? Sydney Pollack’s classic on truth-seeking and truth-telling ponders some of these questions.
Wealthy and influential, Michael Gallagher (Paul Newman) runs a liquor wholesale business in Miami. His late father was with the mob, but he’s out of it himself. Still, the FBI thinks that he’s involved in a hit job on the longshoremen’s union man, Joey Diaz.
Feds, led by agent Elliott Rosen (Bob Balaban), try to squeeze Gallagher into a corner hoping he’ll cough up something that’ll nail his uncle, Santos Malderone (Luther Adler), a real mobster, whom they believe is behind it all. They’ve no qualms about shaking Gallagher’s tree, via a sensational news story, to get to Malderone.
Enter Megan Carter (Sally Field), a gullible Miami Standard journalist. Nosing around Rosen’s desk for a story, Carter imagines she’s stumbled upon a scoop. But case files, appearing to incriminate Gallagher, have been planted there for her to find. Rosen knows that she’ll think she’s on to something and run a story that’ll draw an enraged Gallagher out, simply by naming him as a suspect in a federal investigation.
She falls for it, abetted by her editor McAdam (Josef Sommer). Her story’s devastating wake tears into the worlds of Gallagher and his friend Teresa Perrone (Melinda Dillon). Awkwardly for Carter, this happens in ways that neither her romance with Gallagher nor her remorse can reverse. She learns—the hard way.
Pollack’s opening credits montage shows what goes into publishing a typical broadsheet: headlines, photographs, captions, copy, typeface, layout, design, printing, folding, distribution, retailing. But he depicts machines first, only then humans. Pollack’s emphasizing that no matter how many machines are involved, humans who write the news should come first. They decide what about the people becomes public, and how it’s placed and presented and prioritized. They’re the ones making moral judgments, not machines—at least they should be.
News Cycles Critiqued
Her newspaper’s smug legal counsel tells Carter that he cares not for “the facts,” only “the law.” With a stunning lack of self-awareness, he spells out his reasoning: “The question is not whether your story is true—the question is what protection do we have if it proves to be false? … As a matter of law, the truth of your story is irrelevant. We have no knowledge if the story is false, therefore we’re absent malice. We’ve been both reasonable and prudent, therefore, we’re not negligent.”Gallagher’s lament to Carter echoes the cries of those who suffer a trial by the media and are shamed in a court of public opinion, even before a fair hearing in a court of law. “You say somebody’s guilty and everybody believes you. You say he’s innocent, and no one cares.”
Later, Carter says without a hint of irony, “Don’t expect the truth unless you’re willing to tell it.”
Over 40 years since its release, Pollack’s film speaks even more eloquently to the 21st century than to the 20th.
How It Used to Be
Decades ago, many journalists and journalism schools defined journalism as a vocation: to inform, educate, and even entertain the public. They obsessed more about the craft of broadcasting and what they felt the “public has a right to know” than about what those rights were. Or that knowledge. And many, like Carter, faltered.But with the explosion of real-time media and social media in the 21st century, the public no longer lacks information, education, or entertainment. As Carter’s and Gallagher’s exchanges suggest, journalism should be more sharply defined as providing current context, exposing forgotten historical background, and giving an informed, evidenced, well-reasoned perspective.
Prophetically, Pollack’s teaser-trailer asks: “Suppose you picked up this morning’s newspaper and your life was a front-page headline? Everything said was accurate. But none of it was true?”
