I'll See You at the Movies

 While film has been a regularly discussed topic in our culture for decades, but it was not until 1986 that professional film criticism became a more common way to talk about them. We have Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert to thank.

Siskel was born on Jan 26, 1946, in Chicago, Illinois, and went to Yale University graduating with a degree in philosophy in 1967. After working on a political campaign he wrote press releases for the U.S. Army Reserve and subsequently got a job at the Chicago Tribune in 1969, becoming the paper's film critic within a year. 

Siskel began his broadcasting career in 1974, when the Chicago CBS station had him give reviews and features about films on-air. From 1975 to 1978, Siskel partnered with Ebert for the first time on their own show, Opening Soon at a Theater Near You on a Chicago public broadcasting station.

Ebert was born on June 18, 1942, in Urbana, Illinois. He was a sportswriter for the Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette when he was 15, and was the editor in chief at The Daily Illini, the newspaper for the University of Illinois. After graduating in 1964 with a degree in journalism, and studying abroad in Cape Town, South Africa, Ebert began working for the Chicago Sun-Times and became their lead film critic in 1967.

Ebert was the first person to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1975 for film criticism in the previous year.

When their show was picked up by PBS in 1978 it became nationally syndicated, it was renamed to Sneak Previews, then to At the Movies in 1986. And with a final move to Buena Vista Television, it was renamed to Siskel & Ebert & the Movies. Each week the pair would discuss different films, and oftentimes disagreeing and getting into arguments on-air about certain films even when they both agreed on an overall rating.

Siskel treated movies more as entertainment while Ebert regarded them much more as an art form. The pair had a type of sibling-like banter, allowing them to connect with audiences easier and present more difficult films to mainstream audiences. 

Their style of rating films was using a thumbs-up or thumbs-down system, and eventually copywriting the phrase "two thumbs up." This rating system became very important for a film's marketing, going as far as if a film was rated two thumbs up it would be included on posters, trailers and other advertisements. 

At the height of their show's popularity an estimated 95% of households tuned in each week. They were able to popularize some films that would have been left behind by a majority of moviegoers like My Dinner With Andre or Hoop Dreams. 

The pair was able to express their love of film to audiences in a very accessible approach allowing them to appeal to all types of film fans. Being able to keep serious cinephiles interested in mainstream films and get casual audiences to care about foreign or art-house films.  

In 1998, Siskel was diagnosed with brain cancer and had surgery to remove a tumor later that year. He returned to the show later in the year, but passed away Feb 20, 1999. He was 53.

Ebert continued the show with a different guest host until 2000, when Richard Roeper, a Chicago journalist, became the permanent cohost, and renaming the show Ebert & Roeper & the Movies. 

In 2002, Ebert was diagnosed with thyroid cancer after being in remission for almost 15 years. By 2006 Ebert unofficially retired from broadcast reviewing after having his lower jaw removed, and losing the ability to speak, eat and drink. His retiremnet from his show was not confirmed until 2008, but he did begin to write more reviews on his website, rogerebert.com. 

Ebert died on April 4, 2013. He was 70.

Their Legacy

In their 25 year partnership, the show won seven Emmy awards between 1984 and 1997.

The Film Center at the Art Institute of Chicago was renamed to the Gene Siskel Film Center in 2000, and Ebert was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2005. 

In his last year, Ebert wrote 306 film reviews for his blog, but took a "leave of presence" from writing that he did not return from. Today, his site is run by his wife, Chaz Ebert, with a slew of writers for each new film. 

Siskel and Ebert popularized film criticism like nothing else before or since. Then, the internet was not what it is today, and now there are countless ways for film fans to get reviews for films they want to see that are much more tailored to certain genres. 

Good Night and Good Luck - An Analysis

 The battle between the press and the government is not something new in our history. It is the press' duty is to criticize and expose the government's wrongdoings, but when they do that, the government always resorts to the same tactic, suppression of the media. 

George Clooney's Good Night and Good Luck (2005) recounts an example of this in the era of McCarthyism, and following CBS host Ed Murrow's fight against Senator Joseph McCarthy and his unjust witch hunt for "communist spies" living in America. 

Murrow saw through the lies that McCarthy was feeding the American public and used his show "See It Now" to expose McCarthy and the corruption around The Red Scare. Even when the government tried using a chilling effect, suppressing speech before it happens, or when the executives at CBS threatened to pull him and move his show's time slot to a far less favorable one, Murrow stood his ground. 

Murrow's determination for the truth helped to combat the media blackout on true communist activity in America. And when he did show the public what the government was doing was wrong, and he was punished for it. The government pressured the entire network, sending members of the military to talk with an executive at CBS, going after Murrow's writers and colleagues, and making false claims about Murrow being connected to the communist party.

By the end of the film Murrow was able to persuade the Senate to investigate McCarthy and his practices. Showing the power of the press when they are able to properly do their jobs and stay strong in their reporting. But this needs to be an ongoing practice.

Now, anyone found to be voicing their opinion that goes against the mainstream is "canceled" and silenced, along with any other opinions like it. 

Cancel culture is a new name for an old concept. McCarthyism is back and worse than before. In an age when almost everyone is connected and information travels faster than ever, people's lives and careers can be ruined in an instant, and by anyone. Some notable examples of this include actors Kevin Hart and Chris Pratt being canceled. 

Hart was scheduled to host the 2019 Academy Awards, but a Twitter user found old tweets of Hart using homophobic language between 2009 and 2011. Hart was forced to step down from hosting out of public outrage even though he apologized for using that language. Those tweets were posted almost 10 years prior and Hart had tweeted thousands of times since those tweets. The person who found these tweets were not just scrolling on their feed, they had to dig through his profile to find one time Hart stepped out of line. 

There were claims that Pratt is a member of a famously anti-LGBTQ church, launching Twitter to ridicule Pratt even though the claims turned out to be false. They did not care, they saw someone doing something they did not accept and turned on them. Pratt is a proud republican, a minority among actors, and had people combing his social media to find any connection to political figures and ideas they did not approve of.

All of this was done without any actual evidence of these claims being true, just as McCarthy did in the 1950s.

Cancel culture is also forming a new chilling effect on speech. If people are afraid of cancellation for saying something wrong, they will not say anything to keep their reputation clean. If this new form of McCarthyism is allowed to continue, the future of speech is bleak for those who do not want to live in fear of what they say and keep others in check.

EOTO 3 Reactions - Anonymous Sources

Journalism would not be possible without sources, but not all sources are the same. Some sources will remain anonymous to protect themselves from retaliation against them in their lives. Anonymous sources have been used to get information to the public that otherwise would have been kept under wraps for their own protection.

When someone asks a reporter to remain anonymous, that is a request not taken lightly by a journalist or the publication. Journalists are required to keep sources anonymous to adhere to the confidentiality they are to promise their sources when it comes to good ethical practices. 

Most publications have specific guidelines on when they will publish information from an anonymous source. Oftentimes it will be allowed if the publication knows the source is reliable, is vital to the writing and the information is not available except through the use of anonymity. 

There are drawbacks to this though. Some believe it lessens the accountability of the press because they believe it gives the journalist the power to write anything they want and label it as true because it came from an "anonymous source." 

Journalists do have some protection when it comes to using anonymous sources. Shield laws protect journalists from disclosing confidential information like identifying sources, but this is not a federal law. These vary from state to state.

Judith Miller

The Free Flow of Information Act is a proposed law that would allow a journalist to refuse to testify and reveal who their anonymous sources were in federal cases. This has been repeatedly proposed in Congress since 2005, but has never been able to be passed. It's opponents claim the law would give journalists special privileges. 

There have been instances where journalists have been punished for not disclosing their sources in court. Judith Miller, a reporter for The New York Times, went to jail for 85 days for not revealing details of a meeting she had with an anonymous source in 2005. She was released after her source, the vice-president chief of staff, was able to talk about the meeting.

Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward

Anonymous sources have been critical to some of the most ground-breaking stories in journalism history. While working for The Washington Post, reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein used an anonymous source, later revealed to be the director of the FBI with the code name "deep throat", to break open the Watergate scandal beginning in 1972.

There are different ways for a journalist to gather information from a source and how it and the source can be used. These include on the record, on background, on deep background and off the record.

On the record is what most people associate with a source. They can be identified and everything they say can be quoted. On background restricts the journalist from directly quoting the source, and identifying them by name, but they can use their general title. On deep background only allows the journalist to use the info without quoting, and they cannot identify the source in any way. Finally, off the record means the information cannot be used, but can be used to find other sources or information.

Anonymous sources have been essential to journalism, and without them journalists would not be able to complete their duties to the fullest extent. Especially in the Watergate scandal, without an anonymous source, there would have been a much smaller chance of the public knowing what President Nixon had done if the source's identity was public knowledge beforehand.