How Accurate is “Nightcrawler”‘s Portrayal of the Media and Nightcrawling?
The filmmakers behind Nightcrawler consciously created a film that was stylistically and dramatically over-the-top, but the basic ideas driving the story aren’t that removed from reality. The film creators were inspired by the horrific “caught-on-tape” moments that often propel the local nightly broadcast news.
While broadcast news has had a shrinking presence due to the rise of online news sites, a 2012 Pew poll found that nearly half of all Americans (that’s roughly a hundred million Americans) still regularly watch broadcast news. In other words, it’s still considered a very substantial and profitable business in the media world.
And “business” is the key word. Television journalism is a business, and business dictates most of the editorial decisions in the film. When Warren Olney was interviewed by The Los Angeles Times, he recalled that in the same vein as the news station in Nightcrawler, advertising departments at Olney’s news station “would say our audience survey shows that viewers would like stories about X, Y and Z…The subjects were being dictated by the sales department rather than rising up from the news department.”
In terms of what drives viewership, violent and graphic footage are definitely valued. The L.A. Times also reported that a recent study shows that Los Angeles above most other markets prefers crime at the top of its news (and always “breaking”). (See 2010 USC Annenberg study by the Norman Lear Center)