Alien monsters and the reporters who love them

What is it with reporters in early sci-fi flicks? I've been having some fun with the VCR and the endless screen science fiction goofiness of the 1950s, and journalists feature prominently.

A University of Southern California project, the Image of the Journalist in Popular Culture, tracks reporter portrayals. (A membership in the IJPC costs 35 U.S. smackers and gives you access to mondo material.) Joseph Saltzman is the academic in charge: "The reporters in sci-fi films of the 1950s were far different than most reporters in the movies," Saltzman very kindly wrote in response to my questions.

"They were usually helpless and they usually agreed with government and military officials that to protect the public, they would conceal facts and information that might be hurtful. They became partners with the government and the military. This was in line with the political atmosphere in this country [the United States] during the 1950s.... the House Un-American Activities Committee and Senator Joseph McCarthy played on the postwar fear of communism to stage a witch-hunt in Hollywood that destroyed many careers and left a legacy of fear that would last for more than a decade.

"It diminished the motion picture industry's enthusiasm for making movies about corrupt politicians and powerful businessmen. And it created an unquestioning, passive reporter who shows up in one science fiction film after another. These reporters always work with the authorities, and worry less about scoops and informing the public than about protecting the people from themselves by not printing stories that might create panic....

"These reporters are good Americans first, journalists second, and they never question the government's ultimate authority to do the right thing...."

Some flicks just used reporters and newspaper headlines as lazy plot devices "to sum up stories and their implications." Like "Red Planet Mars." Continues Saltzman: "In 'War of the Colossal Beast,' a real-life news reporter is used to give credibility to a giant male roaming the countryside. In 'The Day the Earth Stood Still,' headlines and newscasts are also used, but cameo appearances by familiar real-life journalists add an eerie credibility to the science-fiction story." Your scribe finds this eerily similar to the recent kerfuffle over real CNN correspondents appearing in Hollywood flicks. The world just reinvents itself.

In other flicks, "Reporters work hand-in-hand with the government to subdue or destroy aliens.... In 'The Thing From Another World,' a reporter doesn't just report what happens, but becomes the voice of warning, urging the public to prepare for the next attack from outer space. In 'The Man From Planet X,' only the reporter stands between the Earth and total domination from another planet. This journalist ends up suppressing the news because it might cause a world-wide panic. In 'The Gamma People,' the reporter doesn’t seem to care much about the story and instead saves the town from its evil scientist.... In 'The Land Unknown,' a female reporter comes back with a sensational story, but is more interested in marrying the scientist than [in] filing her story."

Wow. What a goldmine is Joseph Saltzman. This list gives sets out a whole new collection of rental ideas. But a warning is in order: be prepared to hit the fast-forward button. I would have gone nuts were it not for the ability to zoom through "Twenty Million Miles to Earth." Good thing no reporters were hurt while the poor, misunderstood Venusian monster trashed the Italian countryside!