Examples of the Worst News Judgment Ever in Live-Action Films.
- The theft of fifteen puppies in 101 Dalmatians (1996) somehow makes the front page of a national newspaper, while the wedding of two nobodies is covered by The Independent. Of course this is Disney England, where the puppy crisis warrants a dozen or so squad cars to comb the Home Counties for these missing dogs. Never mind that there could be murderers to catch. Admittedly they're also on the trail of a woman who's already had a rare and protected tiger illegally slaughtered inside London Zoo so she could have the pelt, and if one treats the puppies as human children, then the theft of that many puppies would be equivalent to a massive kidnapping worthy of the attention of the nation's law enforcement officials.
- Averted in Absolute Beginners - the riots that make up the climax of the film rightly get the front page of the tabloid we see promoter Harry Charms holding near the end; it's just a different story that's making him sob (Baby Boom, his latest discovery, has gotten married, and that story's on the back page).
- A continuing theme in All the President's Men, is how headlines for Watergate started small and grew larger. There are several scenes where Watergate headlines are overshadowed by stories that, in hindsight, were much smaller.
- An early scene has Ben Bradlee crossing out large portions of the article and saying "Stick it inside someplace."
- At another point, we see a newspaper with a headline about Eagleton dropping out. When the paper is turned over, we see that the Watergate story is below the fold.
- The one time Woodward and Bernstein get the top headline, it turns out to be flawed, showing that Ben Bradlee has reasons to be pushing back.
- Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, which is set in 1980, sends this up by having Ron Burgundy and his crew effectively inventing the trope
— at least as far as its use by 24-Hour News Networks is concerned. Stuck in a 2 AM timeslot and having made a bet with the prime time anchor that they could get higher ratings, they decide to give people what they want to see, so rather than actual news they present cute animal stories, tributes to American patriotism, gimmicky sports highlights, and celebrity fluff. This works spectacularly. - Back to the Future Part II:
- In the alternate future (courtesy of Biff), Doc holds up a newspaper where the front page story is about how he was proclaimed insane and committed. While he is a strange, prominent figure in the town, it doesn't really merit the front page.
- Jonathan Chait has harsh words regarding the editorial priorities of the Hill Valley Telegraph.
- In Batman & Robin, news of Bruce Wayne attending the opening of an observatory is the big front-page headline. Bemoaned by the Agony Booth here. "It must have been a slow news day". This example is particularly silly, given that Batman and Robin just fought Mr. Freeze in a very public battle with a whole lot of collateral damage.
- The Beatniks. Mooney thinks he'll become famous because "I SHOT THAT FAT BARKEEP!"
- Played for Drama in one scene from Big Miracle, where Jill complains a family of trapped whales are getting so much attention where there are 30 wars going on somewhere in the world at that moment.
- Christmas with the Kranks: The family's decision to not celebrate Christmas that year ended up being such Serious Business for the townsfolk that it became front-page news.
- Damien: Omen II. Death in freak elevator "accident" does not warrant a front page.
- The inverted version is shown in Dog Soldiers: The screen shows an article depicting the events of the film, only to quickly pan out, revealing it as a secondary story to the main headline (the result of an International Football match). The secondary story is about the only survivor of a British soldier unit who were attacked by werewolves.
- A plot point in Don't Look Up: When the main characters break the news to the world that a giant comet is on a collision course with Earth, it gets completely overshadowed by two pop stars announcing their engagement.
- Girl in Gold Boots:Buz: Aha, front page!
Mike: Yeah, front page of the LA Times: '$40 Robbery, No One Hurt.' - Give My Regards to Broad Street MUSIC EMPIRE COLLAPSES! as sole story on top of the fold of a paper. Though perhaps justified, as this was actually occurring within the daydream of the musician whose empire was collapsing.
- Lampshaded in The Great Muppet Caper. Kermit and Fozzie, playing reporters, spend the opening number surrounded by a balloon crash, a jailbreak, and general mayhem culminating in a daring daylight jewel robbery. This last, which sets off the plot of the movie, is the cover story in every major paper — except Kermit and Fozzie's, which runs the headline "Identical Twins Join Chronicle Staff". Their editor is furious not only because of the huge missed story, but because Kermit and Fozzie don't even look alike. That's because Fozzie had his hat off.
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix not only averts this—a lot of the stuff would be important normally, but is often buried because of pressure from the Ministry of Magic—but makes the Spinning Paper trope work.
- Invoked in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, but the MACUSA covers up the existence of magic by replacing a story about a magical creature wreaking havoc with one about out-of-season rainy weather.
- Happens quite a bit in It Happened One Night, where Ellie Andrews' love life makes not only the front page of all the major New York papers, but is the top headline for every single one of them.
- A deleted scene from Hudson Hawk has Hudson learning his beloved pet monkey was killed in a shooting...as it's on the front page of the newspaper under "MONKEY SLAIN IN GANGLAND HIT".
- In The Italian, it's a huge headline and a big story in the newspaper when Corrigan the political boss's daughter gets sick. This is necessary to the plot so Beppo the protagonist can find out about Corrigna's daughter and take his revenge.
- Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter and "CRITICAL LESBIAN SHORTAGE".
- Played with in Kingsman: The Secret Service. Galahad collects the front pages of newspapers from the days when he completed a mission. Between the secrecy of his work and the shallowness of the Sun's editors, most of the articles are about sporting events or celebrity fluff rather than whatever crisis he resolved.
- Lady in Cement: A local TV station would never break into the broadcast of a national program (especially one like Daniel Boone, aimed at children and families) to announce the murder of the owner of a go-go club, as shown in the film.
- Libeled Lady, in which "PEER'S WIFE ROUTS RICH PLAYGIRL" is the front-page headline. It's even worse news judgment, because it isn't true, and the playgirl accused of trying to break up a peer's marriage sues for libel.
- The travel plans and marriage plans of French playboy Michel Marnet in Love Affair are fodder for radio commentators and front-page newspaper headlines.
- Low-budget D-movie Maneater is downright hilarious with this. At one point, it's revealed that USA Today and Entertainment Weekly are interested in a tiger killing some people in the Appalachian Mountains. The sense that doesn't make is extraordinary.
- A plot point in Men in Black; the stories about aliens you see in the tabloid newspapers are real, it's just that no one believes them.Agent J: These are the hot sheets?
Agent K: Best investigative reporting on the planet. But go ahead, read The New York Times if you want. They get lucky sometimes. - In The Mighty Ducks series, Pee-Wee hockey results making front-page news seems a little ridiculous even by hockey-loving Minnesota standards. It goes even more overboard in the sequel, where the hockey finals of Junior Goodwill Games not only get huge newspaper coverage, but the finals preview includes a giant Floating Head Syndrome image hyping Coach Bombay vs. Wolf Stansson.
- In My Name is Bruce, an old newspaper has the headline claiming the birth of a two-headed horse. A smaller article announces a local spelling bee. An even smaller article mentions how one hundred Chinese immigrants were killed when a local mine collapsed.
- Apparently, in the world of My Pet Monster, a dog being the favorite to win a dog show is worthy of the front page.
- Spoofed in National Lampoon's Vacation where Chevy Chase is reading a newspaper with the headline: AMERICAN COUPLE MISSING AS JAPAN SLIDES INTO THE SEA.
- In Odd Squad: The Movie, the sportscaster blows off his duties in favor of covering the hyper-awesome Weird Team's exploits.
- Played with in the direct-to-video The Onion Movie. A woman witnesses a house explode on the other side of the street and calls the Onion News hotline. The following scene shows an Onion van arriving on the spot to report on her husband's missing socks, which makes the front page. The people in the neighborhood exhibit similar behavior, being far more interested in the presence of the Onion news team than the catastrophe that had just taken place.
- In Osmosis Jones, there are two instances. Frank vomiting on Shane's teacher manages to make the front page in major newspapers across the country. This starts to be Refuge in Audacity later, though:Frank: I know your daughter, Hurley, had to transfer schools...
Mrs. Boyd: Shirley. My daughter's name is Shirley.
Frank: Oh, that is much prettier. Tom Brokaw called her Hurley.- Later the newscasters for NNN are giving a desperate last broadcast after Thrax takes the DNA bead, saying they have "lost contact with the lower extremities", the screen flickering and sound full of static, when one starts to introduce a segment about "household appliances that can improve your golf swing!" This is lampshaded: the other screams at her for being a moron.
- This is a key plot point in The Paper: on the day when every other news outlet in the New York area leads with the story of the apparently racially-motivated murder of two white financiers, the eponymous newspaper, the New York Sun (which was actually an Expy of the New York Post, and not the Real Life New York Sun), led with a story about one of their columnist's cars being towed.
- In Patton, Patton makes a speech to a crowd of British women about how the Americans and British will rule the world, neglecting to mentions the Russians. Cut to newsreel proclaiming "Patton insults Russian allies". The Truth in Television version would've been even worse. Apparently, Patton did mention the Russians, but news reports didn't mention that. However, (in the film version) this would have to be seen in historical context — even the slightest hint of a rift between Russia and the West would have had incredibly far-reaching and potentially catastrophic results during World War II, and that conflict did have a decisive impact on history for the next 50 years, so it makes sense that that part of Patton's speech would receive dramatically more attention than anything else he said (which was otherwise just what people expected from such a speech anyway.)
- The film noir Scandal Sheet has an editor taking over a New York paper that may have been too "non-sensational" for its own good. Their take on the 1948 Presidential election was a small bold type "Mr. Dewey defeated" headline. The new editor quickly turns it into a sensationalist rag that pushes small murders into huge deals among other wild stories to boost readership. In a dark irony, when he kills his ex-wife, his own star reporter decides to turn it into a major story and the paper's circulation soars thanks to a story the editor would prefer buried.
- In Scary Movie 3, the news station that Cindy Campbell works for refuses to air her story about a killer videotape which anyone that watches it dies seven days later. This, however, doesn't necessarily make it this trope, as her story does seem rather out there. What does make it this trope is that they're instead more concerned with airing fluff news stories and stories about things like breast implants. Then, when they finally do become convinced that the tape exists, they get a copy of it and play it.Ross Giggins: We're the only station that has it and we are showing it all night. (videotape begins playing)
- Sextette. Apparently, the sex life and consummation of an 85-year-old woman with a 32-year-old Brit is front page news across the world, instead of on Ripley's Believe It or Not! or maybe Faces of Death.
- Throughout Silent Movie, the headlines of the paper being shown all center around Mel Funn's silent movie project and his progress in recruiting first-rate talent for the picture. The second most important article on the front page tends to be about the newspaper salesman being repeatedly injured because the deliverymen keep throwing a large bundle of papers at him instead of leaving it on the curb.
- S1m0ne had a radio broadcast version when the reporter said that things like the threat of nuclear destruction have all been overshadowed by the preparations for the Academy awards.
- Spider-Man Trilogy: In Spider-Man 2, "SPIDER-MAN NO MORE" gets a front page picture in the Bugle, while a story about Doc Ock gets pushed to the back pages. Justified in that the editor of the Bugle is J. Jonah Jameson, whose fixation on Spider-Man is legendary.
- In Test Pilot, apparently every time Jim goes up to test a plane it is front-page, above-the-fold newspaper material.
- At the end of Van Wilder, the main character's love interest gets a story published on the front page of the school paper chronicling Van's expulsion hearing. That's not the poor news judgment. That comes into play when you consider that the "story" is more of a trashy gossip column, filled with embarrassing sexual details about the writer's ex-boyfriend. Those sort of pieces do get published, but even a student paper isn't going to stick that on the front page of the graduation edition. Or any other edition, really. Then there's the framed front-page story about the difference between light and dark beer... by a journalist who goes on to win a Pulitzer.
- In Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, a kiss between Rita Marlowe (who is a Hollywood celebrity) and Rock "Lover Doll" Hunter (still not used to the fame he caught from Miss Marlowe) makes headlines around the world in a montage. Lampshade Hanging occurs with the headlines from foreign newspapers dissolving to "RUSSIA INVENTED LOVER DOLL" and "LOVER DOLL MUST BE FRENCH!"
