When Hollywood portrays reporters, why do they so often get it wrong?

Especially when it comes to depicting female reporters.

Welcome to the Reliable Sources Podcast. I'm your host Brian Stelter. This

weekly podcast in between our Sunday television program is a chance to go more in

depth beyond the headlines with media leaders and

newsmakers. This week something a little different, a problem that's been

evident for years.

The lazy trope of the unethical female journalists.

That's the title of my guest article.

Sophie Gilbert wrote it. She's a staff writer at the Atlantic and she's joining me from London.

Sophie, thanks so much for talking with me.

Thanks so much for having me.

Was it HBO's sharp objects that got you thinking about this problem?

So sharp objects is the most recent example of a trope that goes back.

I'd say about four decades now.

And it's not the most egregious example. I think you can defend

sharp objects by saying that it's a really great television show and what it's doing

with fiction is worth defending. But it is propagating this trope that you saw

in House of Cards with the character of Zoe Barnes

that you've seen in, you know, in recent movies and in recent television in which female reporters

are depicted usually as highly

unethical, often lazy and sloppy in their reporting methods

...