Nice Try!   

A tabloid veteran compares newsroom life in Ron Howard's movie "The Paper" to reality.

Just how well does Ron Howard's big-budget movie "The Paper" capture the delightfully degenerate spirit of the hard-boiled tabloid newsroom?

Well, a screaming New York Post headline might read: NICE TRY!

Yes, there are some beautiful on-target moments at the New York Sun – a composite of the Post and the New York Daily News – that had me alternately wincing and in stitches.

But we're certainly not the bunch of frenzied, maniacs that seem to zoom around Howard's version of our workplace with reckless abandon.

On most days a visitor to the Post and News city rooms – as well as most other newsrooms around the country – would find them more like insurance offices than human minefields, as the Sun's offices seem to be.

Still, when director Howard hits the mark, he draws blood.

In one scene, Dan McDougal, a scruffy, unshaven columnist played by Randy Quaid, sleeps on his editor's couch. He's had too much booze and he's worried that somebody he criticized in print is after him. He's wearing grubby jeans, has a newspaper draped over his face to block out the light, and is snoring heavily – the epitome of every ink-stained wretch who ever lived and breathed a surly tabloid life.

No one can really say exactly how many tabloid grunts have "slept it off" in the newsroom, but I'd be a rich man if I had a quarter for each one. In one of my own infamous moments, I unhinged a door in the Post's library, placed it on the filthy floor and slept off a hammering hangover.

McDougal guzzles a bottle of Pepto Bismol, a product almost everybody in our business keeps in a drawer. After all, fast food and boozy binges at favorite newspaper hangouts bring down even the most cast-iron of systems.

You can look at about three-quarters of the cast of "The Paper" and think "Ulcer!"

The constant cursing in the Sun newsroom is also letter-perfect. We all swear like sailors. This boorish behavior is almost like a free weekly therapy session. We utter things we could never get away with at home with our families, where we're expected to be pussycats.

Howard's portrait of the newsroom as a sea of cigarette butts, empty coffee cups and balled up sandwich paper in a universe of badly dressed people [see "Everybody Knows This is No Wear," page 36] and untamed stacks of newspapers and notebooks is right on the money.

And then there are the smoking wars – beautifully captured here – featuring those who demand to drag on their cancer sticks at their desks and those who demand they don't.

The Sun's panoramic view of the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges isn't some phony Hollywood idea. That's what New York Post staffers get to see every day. (It was shot from a building just south of the Post on the East River.)

One moment that rings nauseatingly true is during an editorial meeting in which an international story is brought up for consideration. But where's the local angle? one editor wants to know. Is anybody from New York? What does it mean for our city?

How many times has one of our bosses ordered us to pull a local angle out of a global story? And how many times have we rolled our eyes in disgust? Who cares if the former assistant deputy mayor lives there?

I'm surprised that Howard didn't see fit to include the large number of Aussies and Brits who've become a major part of the American tabloid newspaper scene. They're one of the reasons the tabs have managed to maintain a few of their traditional rough-and-tumble edges.

Ironically, one of the most energized scenes in "The Paper," a scene just about everybody likes, could never, ever happen.

It's the scene in which Sun Metro Editor Henry Hackett, played by Michael Keaton, desperately wants to stop the presses to put a late-breaking scoop on page one. The paper's managing editor and head bean counter, Alicia Stark, played by Glenn Close (whom everybody who's ever had an expense sheet kicked back for some ridiculous infraction will immediately despise), has told Hackett it's too expensive.

So you have Hackett and Stark wrestling in a down-and-dirty fight to get to the big button that shuts everything down.

What's so unreal about this scene is that the jousting journalists go at it while a number of burly pressmen stand by and do nothing.

Hey, at a real newspaper, no pressmen worthy of their trade are going to let anybody near their presses. They'd sooner beat the crap out of everybody. And nowadays the "stop the press" order is always given by phone.

Still, it's a great scene because it's something all news folks dream of doing. But it's a one-in-a-million shot that we ever will.

Perhaps the most realistic aspect of the movie is the portrayal of what we tabloid folk believe it's like at the New York Times.

All non-Timesians are hooked on the stereotype that Times editors and reporters are stuck-up, out-of-touch snobmeisters who cover the world like wallpaper but wouldn't know a good local story if they gagged on it.

And "The Paper" reflects those beliefs.

When Hackett, who is considering jumping to a more "prestigious" workplace, goes for an interview at the Sentinel, we're immediately transported into a Harvard Club-type newsroom where everybody speaks in hushed tones and dresses just one step shy of black tie.

Instantly, stiff-upper-lipped Editor Paul Bladden (Spalding Gray, in the film's best performance) starts laying it on thick about the importance of his newspaper.

Later in the day, as their philosophical differences emerge and Hackett turns the job down, both blow up.

"You're giving up your chance to cover the world!" Bladden booms over the phone.

Hackett roars back: "I don't live in the fucking world! I live in fucking New York City!"

His words capture the spirit of all tabloid newspapermen and women – that we may not know what's happening in Malaysia, but we'll show you every wart on Madonna's ass and print every F-word that spews from her mouth while bringing you police scandals, city hall shockers and bikini-clad girls.

It's no wonder that Hackett's profane and marvelous line brought tremendous applause among all-newspaper preview audiences.

And a final question: How underhanded would any of us be to get a scoop? During his interview at the Sentinel, Hackett steals a big exclusive by reading some notes on the Sentinel editor's desk.

Gee, that seems highly unethical. Would any of us ever do something so dastardly?

You bet your sweet ass we would! And we'd brag about it, too! n