The Journalist in British Fiction and Film Guarding the Guardians from 1900 to the Present

Why did Edwardian novelists portray journalists as swashbuckling, truth-seeking super-heroes whereas post-WW2 depictions present the journalist as alienated outsider? Why are contemporary fictional journalists often deranged, murderous or intensely vulnerable? As newspaper journalism faces the double crisis of a lack of trust post-Leveson, and a lack of influence in the fragmented internet age, how do cultural producers view journalists and their role in society today?

In The Journalist in British Fiction and Film Sarah Lonsdale traces the ways in which journalists and newspapers have been depicted in fiction, theatre and film from the dawn of the mass popular press to the present day. The book asks first how journalists were represented in various distinct periods of the 20th century and then attempts to explain why these representations vary so widely. This is a history of the British press, told not by historians and sociologists, but by writers and directors as well as journalists themselves. In uncovering dozens of forgotten fictions, Sarah Lonsdale explores the bare-knuckled literary combat conducted by writers contesting the disputed boundaries between literature and journalism. Within these texts and films there is perhaps also a clue as to how the best aspects of 'Fourth estate' journalism can survive in the digital age.

Authors covered in the volume include: Martin Amis, Graham Greene, George Orwell, Pat Barker, Evelyn Waugh, Elizabeth Bowen, Arnold Wesker and Rudyard Kipling. Television and films covered include House of Cards (US and UK versions), Spotlight, Defence of the Realm, Secret State and State of Play.

Introduction
Guarding the guardians: how writers of fiction engage with the subject of journalism and newspapers in novels, poems, plays and film

1. Man of Letters, Literary lady, Reporter or Hack?
The changing role of the journalist at the dawn of the mass press 1880 – 1920

2. From Truth-Tellers to 'grunting, squealing pressmen'
How the First World War altered writers' opinions of journalism in a radical way

3. 'The Interview with the Cat was Particularly Good'
Journalists and the 'battle of the brows' 1919 – 1935

4. Journalist or Spy?
Foreign correspondents of the 1930s

5. Pantomime Villain or Threat to Democracy?
The Rise and Fall of the Press Baron 1909 – 1984

6. 'A journalist's finished at forty, of course'
Alienation and insecurity in Post WW2 depictions 1945 – 1975

7. 'We agreed that women were a nuisance in an office, anyway'
From doughty pioneer to unscrupulous schemer: the fate of the woman reporter in over 100 years of fictions

8. Journalists on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Falling apart in the 'Last Chance Saloon'

Conclusion
The future of journalism and 'newspaper fiction' in the post-Leveson, digital era

Bibliography

Index

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