‘The Newsroom’ and other journalists on screen

Any journalist will tell you that the profession looks far better on screen than in real life, where writers and broadcasters hunch over their desks, drinking too much coffee. But that hasn’t stopped Hollywood from depicting the trade in these popular shows and movies.

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In Aaron Sorkin’s new series, “The Newsroom,” Jeff Daniels plays a maverick broadcaster who sets out to create a new kind of cable news show.

John P. Johnson / HBO

“Citizen Kane,” considered one of the greatest films of all time, is about media magnate Charles Foster Kane, modeled upon newspaper owner William Randolph Hearst.

File photo

“His Girl Friday” is a 1940 screwball comedy about an unlikely pair of reporters played by Cary Grant, center, and Rosalind Russell. They’re shown here with Ralph Bellamy.

/ Claridge Pictures/Photofest

Actors Robert Redford, right, and Dustin Hoffman appear in their roles as Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, respectively, in the 1976 film about the Watergate scandal, "All the President's Men."

/ AP

Clark Kent seems to be a mere reporter at the fictional Daily Planet — but he’s actually Superman, portrayed in 1978 by actor Christopher Reeve.

/ Reuters

Mary Tyler Moore played Mary Richards, a TV news producer and independent career woman, with her boss Lou Grant (played by Ed Asner) on her eponymous show.

/ CBS

Sally Field stars as a zealous Miami newspaper reporter investigating a murder in "Absence of Malice."

Columbia Pictures

The 1992 Disney musical “Newsies” focused not on the reporters, but on the newspaper sellers, led by Christian Bale.

Touchwood Pacific Partners 1

The NBC sitcom “Just Shoot Me” followed the staff at the fictional magazine Blush. David Spade starred as the smart-mouthed assistant Dennis Finch, with Brooke Shields as a guest star.

NBC / Chris Haston

Cameron Crowe’s semi-autobiographical 2000 film, “Almost Famous,” follows an aspiring music journalist on his first big assignment for Rolling Stone, following the fictional band Stillwater.

Neal Preston

By day, he’s the mild-mannered Daily Bugle freelance photographer Peter Parker. By night, he’s the amazing Spider-Man, portrayed in the 2002 film by Tobey Maguire.

/ Reuters

For its fifth and final season, HBO’s "The Wire" ventured into the newsroom of The Sun, Baltimore's newspaper of record, where executive producer and lead writer David Simon worked for 13 years as a police reporter before he took a buyout in 1995.

Paul Schiraldi / HBO via AP

Miranda Priestly, played icily by Meryl Streep, was a stand-in for Vogue editor Anna Wintour in "The Devil Wears Prada," which focused on her young assistant, a woman who wants to be a reporter and gets her big break in the world of fashion magazines.

Barry Wetcher / Twentieth Century Fox

Actor David Strathairn starred as Edward R. Murrow in 2005’s "Good Night, and Good Luck," a movie about the newsman’s conflicts with Joseph McCarthy, an anti-Communist senator. The film got its title from the sign-off that Murrow used at the end of his broadcasts.

/ AP

Stephen Glass’s real-life fabrications at the New Republic inspired the film “Shattered Glass,” where he was portrayed by Hayden Christensen, shown with Chloe Sevigny and Melanie Lynskey.

Jonathan Wenk / Lions Gate Films

The Watergate scandal birthed another journalism movie: “Frost/Nixon,” based on the play of the same name, was a dramatization of British TV host David Frost’s (Michael Sheen) 1977 interview with Richard Nixon (Frank Langella). Frost’s journalistic challenge was to get the former president to admit to wrongdoing.

Ralph Nelson / Universal Pictures

Reporters Cal McAffrey (Russell Crowe) and Della Frye (Rachel McAdams) followed the trail of a murder and political scandal in the 2009 thriller "State of Play."

Glen Wilson

The endlessly quotable movie “Anchorman” (“I love Scotch. Scotchy, Scotch, Scotch. Here it goes down, down into my belly”) featured one of Will Ferrell’s most beloved characters: Ron Burgundy (Ferrell) is a chauvinistic San Diego anchor who chafes at the thought of sharing his desk with up-and-coming reporter Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate).

/ Darren Michaels

New York Times media reporter David Carr became a movie star in “Page One: Inside the New York Times,” a documentary that exposed the paper’s inner workings.

Magnolia Pictures

FEATURED PHOTO GALLERIES

epa03708924 Franziska (C) wears a helmet and carries a shield during the recreation of The Battle of the Teutoburg Museum in Bramsche, Germany, 20 May 2013. The everyday life of Romans and the Germanic people is depicted at Museum Park Kalkriese during the Romans and Germanic people days. EPA/Friso Gentsch

Photos of the day

Battle of Teutoburg Forest reenactment, Mars Curiosity rover drilling, massive tornado strikes Moore, Oklahoma and more.

A Burrowing owl tries to perch on a protective rope in a public park in Cooper City, Fla. Monday, May 20, 2013 as rain falls. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter)

Animal views

Fun and fascinating creatures around the world.

ANNAPOLIS, MD - MAY 20: The Herndon Monument Climb is the traditional culmination of plebe year at the United States Naval Academy. The plebes climb to the top of the lard-covered 21 foot high monument and remove the 'dixie cup' hat at the top replacing it with an upperclassman's hat. After completing this, the freshmen are called 'fourth class midshipmen.' This class completed the task in 1 hour 32 minutes and 43 seconds. The hat was placed by Patrick Lien from Orlando. (Photo by Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)

The Herndon Climb

The Herndon Monument climb is the traditional culmination of plebe year at the U.S. Naval Academy.

This combination of Associated Press photos shows left, a neighborhood in Moore, Okla., in ruins on Tuesday, May 4, 1999, after a tornado flattened many houses and buildings in central Oklahoma, and right, flattened houses in Moore on Monday, May 20, 2013. Monday's powerful tornado in suburban Oklahoma City loosely followed the path of a killer twister that slammed the region in May 1999. (AP Photo)

Okla. tornado loosely followed path of 1999 twister

Monday’s powerful tornado in suburban Oklahoma City loosely followed the path of a killer twister that slammed the area in May 1999.

Lea Bessinger salvages a picture of Jesus as she and her son Josh Bessinger sort through the rubble of the elder Bessinger's tornado-ravaged home Tuesday, May 21, 2013, in Moore, Okla. A huge tornado roared through the Oklahoma City suburb Monday, flattening an entire neighborhoods and destroying an elementary school with a direct blow as children and teachers huddled against winds. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Tornado near Oklahoma City causes more damage

Rescue workers are searching for survivors after a twister carved a long path of destruction in a suburb of Oklahoma City. It was part of the...

FILE - In this undated publicity file photo, members of the Doors, from left, John Densmore, Robbie Krieger, Ray Manzarek and Jim Morrison, pose for a portrait. Manzarek, the keyboardist who was a founding member of The Doors, has died at 74. Publicist Heidi Robinson-Fitzgerald says in a news release that Manzarek died Monday, May 20, 2013, at the RoMed Clinic in Rosenheim, Germany, surrounded by his family. (AP Photo, File)

Ray Manzarek, founding member of the Doors, dies at 74

Manzarek co-founded the Doors after meeting then-poet Jim Morrison in California. The band went on to become one of the most successful rock-and-roll...

US actress Rosario Dawson smiles on May 20, 2013 as she arrives for the screening of the film 'Wara No Tate' (Shield of Straw) presented in Competition at the 66th edition of the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes. Cannes, one of the world's top film festivals, opened on May 15 and will climax on May 26 with awards selected by a jury headed this year by Hollywood legend Steven Spielberg. AFP PHOTO / ALBERTO PIZZOLIALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP/Getty Images

Eye on entertainment

Rosario Dawson, Alec Baldwin, Michael Douglas, Matt Damon, Bow Wow, Amy Poehler and more.

A man walks on sulphur and mineral salt formations near Dallol in the Danakil Depression, northern Ethiopia April 22, 2013. The Danakil Depression in Ethiopia is one of the hottest and harshest environments on earth, with an average annual temperature of 94 degrees Fahrenheit (34.4 Celsius). For centuries, merchants have travelled there with caravans of camels to collect salt from the surface of the vast desert basin. The mineral is extracted and shaped into slabs, then loaded onto the animals before being transported back across the desert so that it can be sold around the country. Picture taken April 22, 2013. REUTERS/Siegfried Modola (ETHIOPIA - Tags: BUSINESS SOCIETY TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY)

ATTENTION EDITORS: PICTURE 2 OF 30 FOR PACKAGE 'ETHIOPIA'S ANCIENT SALT TRAIL'
SEARCH 'DANAKIL DEPRESSION' FOR ALL

Ethiopia’s salt trail

For centuries, merchants have traveled to Ethiopia’s Danakil Depression with caravans of camels to collect salt from the surface of the vast desert basin. The mineral is extracted...

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