Commentary : Blaming the Messengers--Again

In one scene, a reporter in a bar declares, “It would be better for us if she’s found guilty.”

About the closest anyone from the press comes to being decent in Meryl Streep’s new film, “A Cry in the Dark,” is the nameless guy who punches that first cad in the nose.

In large part, “A Cry in the Dark” is a finely controlled study about Australia’s terrifying and true Chamberlain case, in which a mother who claimed a wild dog carried off her baby in the Australian countryside was eventually tried for murder.

But from the first time that someone tells Michael Chamberlain that reporters are calling about his daughter’s disappearance to the last frightening freeze frame of the press honing in on the family--those hounds--”A Cry in the Dark,” is marred by a tediously familiar ploy: The media did it. Whatever happened to the butler?

This may sound like sour grapes. But with a few exceptions, I have trouble walking out of any movie with a reporter in it these days without feeling defensive. My shoulders hunch, my voice rises, my words get clipped.

In one scene where cameramen staking out Lindy Chamberlain’s apartment during the trial try to photograph her every time she goes to the bathroom, a man two seats away from me cursed under his breath at the outrage. Sam Neil’s character at one point calls the media “bastards,” and in this film even I would agree. Nowhere is even a mildly responsible journalist in sight.

The problem with “Cry” is that the press, contrary to common mythology, is rarely if ever a lone gunman. More often it is society’s accomplice. But by pinning the rap largely on the press, “A Cry in the Dark,” is diminished as a study of the Chamberlains and their country.

The Chamberlain case became one of the most publicized in recent Australian history, a national circus that turned the Seventh Day Adventist Chamberlain family into a national freak show.

The case seems sadly both familiar and relevant now. Its disturbing implications repeat themselves in the trail of scuttling cameramen and tabloid headlines of seemingly every major story on the news, from the bizarre media avalanche of a presidential election, to the patheticly public disintegration of boxer Mike Tyson’s and Robin Given’s marriage.

Another current film, Jodie Foster’s “The Accused,” based on the New Bedford, Mass., rape case, has even more real-life parallels, though the film doesn’t dwell on the media’s role.

The media do have some soul searching to do, particularly in the wake of a presidential race that everyone except George Bush and his media consultant seem disapointed with.

The explosive growth in the number of reporters and camera crews that chase every story these days make the press so obtrusively obnoxious that they change the story itself. The media fly in helicopters and carry gear, bazooka-like, on their shoulders. The more reporters that cover any story means the more bums there will be among them and the louder everyone must shout to get their questions heard. And the sheer volume of accounts tends to exaggerate every nuance.

Then, pseudo psychologists appear on talk shows with pseudo journalistic hosts such as Geraldo Rivera to offer pseudo wisdom or just get in rating-boosting fist fights. And soon the Lyndy Chamberlains of the world are reacting not so much to their tragedy as to the pressure of its public aftermath.

What would be more interesting--and what “Cry” hints at but ultimately backs away from--are the deeper forces that the media reflects. Believe it or not, most reporters are not evil wretches, or even thoughtless sensation mongers. And many of us who cover news are more disturbed by its excesses than anyone, particularly after we’ve been slugged in theback of the head by a sprinting cameraman.

The media are disturbing not because reporters are slobs, but because of what their stories and their excesses imply about us as societies and cultures.

This is one of the things that makes “Cry” so frustrating. The film hints at the other ingredients that go into turning these events into self-propelling meteors of public debate--police and provincial politics, the power of word-of-mouth gossip, religious bigotry, and the character of the principals. Lyndy Chamberlain’s eerie coolness about her tragedy, for instance, played a key role in the jury convicting her.

Had these factors been more than hinted at, “Cry” would have been elevated to a story about a nation’s character, which the case surely was.

Take the case of the New Bedford Rape trial currently depicted in “The Accused.”

The case in real life became a metaphor for American sexuality and rape after reports appeared that a dozen patrons watched and cheered as a woman was gang raped on a barroom pool table. This cheering section forms the basis for the new movie.

In fact, it came out at the trial that the cheering section never existed. The rape victim later admitted reporting it in confusion. The police put it in their reports. The media, which rely heavily on police blotters for information, published the story. The defense attorneys felt inhibited from giving their side equal play. Soon coalition groups interested in rape issues had seized on the case and had an interest maintaining the metaphor. Lawyers in the case saw opportunity in the celebrity of a televised trial and appearances on national TV.

The facts of the Chamberlain case also do not support the media vilification, even in Australia, where reckless British-style tabloid journalism thrives far beyond anything in the United States.

Why is it, for instance, that Lyndy Chamberlain ultimately was released amid mounting public pressure and petition drives, a fact that was missing from the film? Perhaps the media did not do an unexceptionally awful job of presenting both sides after all.

Also missing from the film is that the Chamberlains in the first few days after their daughter’s disappearance apparently tried to make money off the tragedy by selling family photos to the press.

Sorry, Hollywood. Sure, people get a sinking feeling in their stomach when they see a gaggle of reporters and crews, seemingly connected to each other by wires, headed in their direction. I would, too.

And now I get a sinking feeling anytime I see another multimillion-dollar movie by dilettante partisans for accuracy headed to my local theater.