Blake’s Blog

I guess I’m not very good at choosing when to be out of the office.

Last week, while I was attending a meeting in Florida, I missed all the excitement as a Hollywood film crew shot some scenes in our newsroom for a project with the working title "Nothing but the Truth."

So I missed out on a chance to rub elbows with - or at least gawk at - some big-time movie stars. Or maybe even get a few fleeting seconds of fame as an extra. (Although my desk is on the opposite side of the building from the newsroom, I would have been prepared to check my mailbox in the back of the newsroom several times a day, if necessary, to get into a shot.)

But having a movie filmed in your workplace isn’t all soda and popcorn, apparently.

David Williams, one of our business reporters, informed me that some of business department’s stuff seems to have come up missing. The theory is that the movie folks may have scooped up some workplace materials (inadvertently, one would hope), thinking they were just props brought in to make the set look more authentic.

One of business reporter Amos Maki’s sports jackets is among the unaccounted for items. Knowing Amos’ fashion sense, it wouldn’t surprise me if his jacket doesn’t show up on the back of some ambulance-chasing lawyer character in a movie sometime in the next year or two. Or maybe a used car salesman. (Just kidding, Amos. I’m sure GQ will be calling you any day now.)

Anyway, you would think that having a movie shot in your newsroom would bring nothing but good publicity to the profession. Not so.

William Booth, a staff writer for The Washington Post, had a long story about the film production in today’s editions.

Among other points, Booth’s story made mention of the considerable pulchritude of Kate Beckinsale, one of the movie’s stars. About which Rod Lurie, the film’s writer and director, had this to say: "People could say Kate is too good-looking to be a reporter."

Ouch, Mr. Lurie, ouch. If you’re going to talk about journalists that way, the least you can do is give us Amos’ jacket back.