Top Five Movies About Journalism: Almost Famous to Blood Diamond

Out of all the majors and minors offered in schools, it seems that students enrolled in any of the communications arts programs are overlooked and under appreciated.

I cannot count the multiple times I had a friend or acquaintance make a comment similar to "Oh, you are a journalism major? That is such a blow-off major."

But just think about it. Without students in the communication there would be no student news papers, radio stations or news stations.

If the professionals before us did not study topics within the communications arts we would not have any of the following luxuries: news, magazines, newspapers, reality TV shows, movies, advertisements or photography. Without these sources, students would have close to nothing to entertainment. Without these sources, the nation would not know what is going on through out the world.

Those studying communication arts will not necessarily describe the major as "hard," but more like "hard work." Over the past few years the movie industry has produced many movies to portray the world of journalism, to glamorous, the dreadful, and the repulsive.

The bottom of the top five is "Almost Famous" (2001) directed by Cameron Crowe. This movie is based on a teenage journalist, William Miller (Patrick Fugit) who wants to break into the business as a music journalist. His mother, Elaine (Francis McDormand) is against her son's dreams and has forced her son to write for underground papers.

While coving the Black Sabbath concert, William meets a group of ladies who call themselves the "Band-Aides" which are almost groupies, except they do everything besides intercourse with the band. William meets the leader of the "Band-Aides" Penny Lane who has an attraction towards the main singer Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup) of the band Stillwater.