‘Busted’ could shatter stereotypes of female journalists on the small screen.
by Andrea Kszystyniak and Kaylen Ralph
Sarah Jessica Parker is headed back to television screens. And she’ll be bringing a pen and notepad with her in a brand new role as a journalist.
Parker will once again star as a member of the press in the television adaptation of the story of Philadelphia Daily News reporters Wendy Ruderman and Barbara Laker. These two Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists investigated a web of police corruption in Philadelphia in a series of articles called “Tainted Justice,” for which they won the Pulitzer for investigative reporting in 2010. Busted is a new television series that will be based off their memoir of the same name. Parker will star as either Ruderman or Laker.
This seems to be a more serious role for Sarah Jessica Parker, whose past portrayal of a woman in journalism wasn’t always realistic. Her much beloved role as writer and sex columnist Carrie Bradshaw on “Sex and the City” focused more on the fashions, friends and sexual encounters that inspired her writing than on the actual craft of journalism.
Busted joins a list of contemporary, notable TV shows and films that center around women in journalism. And as Neda Semnani pointed out in a 2013 article for The Week, there has never been a shortage of women in journalism on our screens. These shows, such as House of Cards, have been a huge part of the public dialogue lately. But Zoe Barnes, the journalist protagonist portrayed by Kate Mara in the first season of the show, isn’t exactly principled. And, spoiler alert, the series quickly becomes more about her dangerous sexual relationship with one of her sources than the actual craft of breaking a story. Semnani points out that while being a female journalist used to indicate “tenacity, intellect and wit,” this is no longer the case. The most common traits in today’s fictional reporters are naïveté, youth and moral bankruptcy.
This theme is pretty consistent across the lines. Gilmore Girls showed young female journalists as talented and fearless in the college newsroom, but the series ends with Rory’s graduation from college, and audiences are left guessing, and hoping, that Rory is able to hack it in her new position as a political reporter. The Devil Wears Prada focuses on Miranda Priestly, the editor of a major fashion magazine, an elite but already saturated genre of journalism. Parker’s role in Sex and the City was just as fluffy as all of these.
All this lackluster portrayal of women in the field may be because a television show about a woman’s day-to-day life in a newsroom would be pretty boring. There’d be lots of coffee, hair-pulling and frantic typing a few minutes before deadline. But Busted’s source material brings a little more to the table. It gives director David Frankel and Parker the opportunity to bring a more realistic, multi-faceted portrayal of a woman in journalism. Ruderman and Laker used their journalistic know-how to break an absolutely fascinating story. Perhaps this means that Sarah Jessica Parker’s character will be more complex than your run-of-the-mill Carrie Bradshaw or Zoe Barnes.
Ruderman and Laker are faced with several ethical conundrums in the text. Many of their sources are financially destitute and continue to hint at the fact that they would like money from the reporters in exchange for their help. But Ruderman and Laker stick to their guns and journalistic ethics, unlike many women in modern journalistic fiction.
The book also gives an account of what it was like to work at a paper that is struggling financially. When Ruderman and Laker were working on “Tainted Justice” between 2007 and 2010 the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News were in a tailspin. A failing newsroom is a very real fear for most modern journalists and would provide fascinating fodder for the TV adaptation of the text.
The book version of Busted isn’t all about days spent in the newsroom. The text also touches on the personal lives of these journalists. Ruderman has two children and, during her work on the “Tainted Justice” stories, her husband has to take on 100 percent of the parenting. The struggle with work-life balance is something that Parker has touched on before in an earlier film, I Don’t Know How She Does It. And the struggle to balance work and family time is one most journalists are all too familiar with. Though it may be less tantalizing than a hot-and-heavy affair with a politician, this struggle is probably a little more true to life.
We still have quite a while before Busted will make its way to our television screens, but the background story has all of the makings of a great, realistic portrayal of women in journalism. Let’s hope it lives up to our expectations.
Andrea Kszystyniak is a nightlife reporter for the Omaha World-Herald and a contributor for The Riveter. Follow her @andreaksz.
Kaylen Ralph is the co-founder and co-editor of The Riveter. Follow her @kaylenralph.
