The classic newspaper newsroom maintains a powerful mystique among journalists and non-journalists alike. You need not have set foot in one to conjure up vivid images of reporters working the phones, banging on typewriters or computer keyboards, smoking cigarettes (in the olden days) or chugging coffee and barking at colleagues while trying to nail down The Story.
The grit, hard work and ink-stained glamor are tangible in movies such as “The Front Page” (originally a play), “His Girl Friday” (originally “The Front Page”) and “Calling Northside 777” through “All the President’s Men,” “Spotlight” and “She Said,” as well as Aaron Sorkin’s short-lived HBO series about a cable news network titled, yes, “The Newsroom.”
Even if real-life newsrooms aren’t as rife with drama as their on-screen counterparts, these workplaces remain distinct in the way they gather reporters, editors, photographers, designers and more to produce the news on tight deadlines. This is pressurized work done collectively (multiple departments must collaborate to create timely reports) and individually (there’s nothing between you and that blank page or screen when the story must get written). The newsroom is where it happens.
Or happened.
