From the pen of Peddy Chayefsky, under the direction of Sydney Luemt; movie Networks was considered much of a drama when it came out in late 70’s. Much ahead of the time, the movie was a cautionary tale of news media as entertainment.
The movie seems dated as Networks is the real depiction of the today’s news channels’ in-house scenario, where the news channels’ high profiles are more interested in earning big revenues by getting high viewership; back screening their ethical role of providing real and transparent news to the public.
The story revolves around three characters, among which Hovard Beale is an aging anchor, who is about to be fired in a couple of weeks, as his program’s TRPs are sinking day by day. His best friend and Network’s news division dean, Max Schumacher announced this bad news to him.
On the very next braodcast, Beale announced to commit suicide in his last show. The channel fired him immediately, but after the persuasion from his friend, he was given a chance to apologize for what he said in the last show. However, once on the air, he launched into a tirade claiming that life is "bullshit" and performed the character of a depressed emotional person. All of this caused Beale and Max fired the very next day and Diana Christensen (Head of Entertainment Division) was made the new Dean of the news division.
Beale's sudden occurrence caused the newscast's ratings to ascend, which forced Diana to further cash from Beale getting onair. The channel’s ratings started roaring again, as he went on the air with an astonishingly daffy bluster and rage session culminating in his insisting that people go to the windows and yell, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore." Beale became renowned as MAD PROPHET.
After a short era of glory, the program’s ratings started to fall apart. This was when Diana and other High officials of the Networks planned Beale’s murder onair. The plan went successful by hiring a contract killer who then shot dead Beale on screen in a live show.
Today the news channels are forgetting their journalistic values where TRPs and revenue have become their values, ethics, religion and God. They can sacrifice everything on it, no matter how valuable it is. This is a MAD MAD WORLD…….where abnormality has been conceived as totem and belief and harming it is considered as taboo.
Regards,
Roshni Zahid
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