The Hollywood studio system has made just a few feature films about Black journalists, and those movies don’t reflect most Black journalists’ experiences. Instead, the films are typically vehicles for crossover Black stars cast in roles that white actors could play. The color-blind casting obscures the marginalization Black journalists have historically experienced in newsrooms. African Americans have fought— and are still fighting— to be valued in white legacy media. They seldom get plum assignments or prestigious beats, like the characters in the films reviewed for this article. While well-intentioned, the films don’t address the challenges Black journalists face in accessing the same opportunities as their white colleagues, leaving audiences with a skewed view of the status of Black reporters and editors in U.S. newsrooms.

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