Better Know a Noble

Network (1976) - A Critical Review

Sidney Lumet’s cult-classic Network (1976), as seen from the eyes of a jaded 90’s teenager, may seem redundant and manifest. The prospect of our hallowed media establishments, guardians of free speech and public accountability, kowtowing to corporate demands and caving in to public interests is, to most, a foregone conclusion. Yet the film’s contribution to our understanding of mass media is the way it adroitly tracks the gradual decline of a television network’s moral standards in careful, calibrated steps. Hackett’s decision to murder his erstwhile star Howard Beale, albeit chilling, came with little shock as a fit ending to a well-developed plot. Reminiscent of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the plot’s logical progression guides its viewers to a climax far-removed from its starting point, yet completely credible and coherent.

Network grapples with a number of salient issues concerning today’s media, most principally, the economic pressures that influence the final news product. Who decides the evening’s nightly news? The film offers several possibilities, but ultimately leaves this complex question unanswered. Diana Christensen (Dunaway) represents the “profit-seeker” characterization of mass media: Large media corporations, pursuing ever-higher profits in the form of wider newspaper subscriptions and television ratings, will peddle the most entertaining, digestible news stories available. In Network, comprehensive coverage of foreign and domestic politics is gradually replaced with programs starring soothsayers, Communist guerrillas, and “the mad prophet of the airwaves,” Howard Beale. Beale himself denounced the trend on his show:

This company is now in the hands of CCA, the Communication Corporation of
America. And when the twelfth largest company in the world controls the most
awesome, god-damned propaganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what s**t will be peddled for truth on this network. So, you listen to me! Television
is not the truth. Television is a goddamned amusement park. Television is a
circus. So turn off your television sets. Turn them off and leave them off!
(Courtesy of Philosophical Films)

This “bottom-up” pressure propels Christensen to insane ends, cutting deals with unsavory criminals and orchestrating an assassination. To a far lesser degree, television has followed this degenerative path in the face of across-the-board decreases in revenue share.

Another growing influence on the media is corporate capitalism, as portrayed by Arthur Jenson, the CEO of CC&A, of which USB is a subsidiary. In a truly memorable piece of stellar acting, Jenson takes Beale into the darkened conference room and strongly “convinces” him to herald the ascendancy of capitalism over democratic institutions on his show. Dramatizing the “propagandist model”, Director Sidney Lumet explains how media outlets are used as tools for exploitation by those with economic or political power. Analogously, media moguls such as Rupert Murdoch allegedly attempt to sway public opinion by airing political shows with somewhat slanted news coverage.

Humor aside, Network is about these two powerful forces sandwiching the media today. The result is the erosion of the traditional standards of journalism endemic to the industry. One clear loser is the vitality of American democracy, incidentally the very message Howard Beale conveys to his audience before his untimely death.