Fictional journalists in visual media have received regular academic interrogations, with most finding them superficial and overly reliant on gender or racialized stereotypes. We contend, however, that extant research has a key blind spot: they tend to oversample American media, which produces insights applicable to only one national context. We aim to fill that gap with this study by comparing two 2019 journalism drama series: The Morning Show from the U.S. and The World Between Us from Taiwan. We ask how these shows, which both feature a female protagonist in a broadcast newsroom, depict female journalists and journalism as an industry in each national context. We find that both shows depict some elements of real-world newsrooms – hierarchies, deadlines, recording a newscast – but the American show is more focused on individualism, ambition, and power while the Taiwanese show wrestles with ethics and integrity in a hyper-competitive, oversaturated media market. While The Morning Show’s protagonist’s personal life is a distraction from work, The World Between Us’ protagonist’s personal life is key to her character arc and ultimately makes her a better, more ethical reporter. We conclude by calling for more transnational research into journalistic representations.

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