Having worked in multiple news organizations, one of the most irksome aspects of most movies and television shows is how wildly inaccurate they are when it comes to publishing news stories. And Superman movies and TV shows have been Part Of The Problem for a long time… That is, until James Gunn’s new Superman finally got CMS (Content Management System) right.
Spoilers for Superman past this point, but the climax of the movie is the staff of the Daily Planet flying around in Mr. Terrific’s (Edi Gathegi) spaceship, while Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) dictates an exposé about Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) to Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo). Prior to this, while the world is torn apart by an out-of-control portal unzipping reality, Lois and Jimmy laid out the entire story and their research to their Editor-in-Chief Perry White (Wendell Pierce), including their sourcing and logic behind the story, so he could approve it before they move forward. And before they publish, the movie even takes a beat to make sure that Perry has given the article a read-through and edit, then he hands the laptop they’re working on back to Jimmy to publish.
The pièce de résistance when it comes to absolute nerds (like myself)? Jimmy doesn’t just hit a magic “publish” button, and the story is live. He clicks three buttons, which (full disclosure here) I do not remember off-hand, but I believe they are “copy ready,” “web ready,” and “publish.” It’s a small detail, but an accurate one… Most news orgs have multiple checks you need to go through in the CMS before the story goes live, specifically to give you a moment to go “wait, did I forget to do something?”
Compare that to basically every other depiction of the Daily Planet, which mostly involves the story already being published, or Lois or Clark (David Corenswet) sitting down to write and then a smash cut to it being on the front page. Or in any non-Superman media, often you’ll see a scene of someone uploading a story, hitting “publish,” and then it’s live on the site for the whole world to see. That just doesn’t happen in real life, and while what happens in Superman is still an abbreviated and fictionalized version of the process, it’s still closer to IRL than I’ve ever seen on screen, particularly in a superhero movie*.
(*Not to use this as yet another opportunity to slag off the Snyder-verse, but the way Clark [Henry Cavill], a sports reporter, goes rogue and starts publishing crime stories while Perry [Laurence Fishburne] can’t seem to do anything to stop him is insane.)
It also serves a greater purpose, to show how the Daily Planet works together as a team, and saves the day. Sure, Superman and Mr. Terrific stop the whole portal zipper thing. But the movie takes pains to explain that Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) would have kept attacking Superman if the paper hadn’t blown the story wide open. It’s not the Man of Steel who defeats Lex — it’s The Daily Planet. And that’s all down to the steps they take to make sure the story is fact-checked, edited, and responsibly published in the CMS. Maybe a little less on the last part. But it’s still, very, very, very, very important.
Is it crazy for Jimmy to write directly in the CMS, particularly as they’re on a spaceship zooming around a crumbling city that likely has dicey wi-fi? I mean, I’m writing this piece directly in the CMS (though not on a spaceship, nor is my city crumbling due to anti-protons). You definitely shouldn’t write directly in the CMS because any of a million things can go wrong if you don’t save your work externally. But some of us love to live on the edge, just like Jimmy Olsen.
Look, not all heroes wear capes. Some of them vet their sources, have an editor look over their work, and make sure all the boxes are checked in the CMS. Which is just as exciting as a man who can fly. It’s not a bird. It’s not a plane. It’s CMS, man!
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