Check out The Office’s Michael Scott being a pro-active crisis manager. He’s got it partly right. It is better if the press hears about bad news from you instead of others. But it’s also good to have some concept of what might be newsworthy in the first place.

Here’s a doozy from everyone’s favorite entrepreneur, George Jefferson. He thinks a good newspaper story will be just the thing to boost his reputation as a successful, self-made businessman. But the reporter covering the story has other ideas.

So, I attended a panel discussion involving some of the experts at Tumblr last night. Turns out, I’ve been doing it wrong. The ideal Tumblr microblog is apparently more stream-of-consciousness than thoughtful commentary. Long-form posts that take more than a few seconds to digest are undesireable. I suppose the kind of stuff I’ve been sharing might be better suited to a Blogspot account. But I like that Tumblr offers the ability to post almost any type of content easily. It gives me flexibility as this blog evolves and I find my voice. Anyway, at least for now, I’ll suspend the long-windedness and just let you interpret these clips on your own.

Here’s an oldie but a goodie: “Shock Corridor” from 1963.

Inspired by the true story of Nellie Bly, this film finds ace reporter Johnny Barrett faking insanity to get himself committed to a mental institution. He hopes to solve a cold murder case and, more importantly, win a Pulitzer Prize.

For a cover, he has a friend pretend to be his sister and report that he has been abusing her since adolescence. He supposedly has a hair fetish, and convinces the authorities so expertly that they don’t even bother to hold a commitment hearing or validate his relationship with said relative. It’s off to the looney bin for Johnny, and he couldn’t be happier about it.

Two short scenes are included in the clip below. In the first, Johnny is shown to his room at the asylum and realizes he has pulled it off! Smug bastard.

In the second, which is included just for yuks, he gets corralled in the sexual disorder wing by a bunch of crazed “nymphos.” He tries to escape but, alas, the atrocities a reporter has to endure just to get the story. It is a disturbing scene, though, as this pack of cougars comes on more like a bunch of flesh-eating zombies, dragging him to the floor in a cacophany of tortured screams and bad singing.

If you like your media films served up with a heaping side of unintentional humor, “Shock Corridor” is for you. Long-story-short: Johnny nearly loses his own mind, but still manages to find the killer and get the scoop. Journalism 1, Nutcases 0!

OK, let’s get serious here for a minute.

For my money, “The China Syndrome” (1979) is one of the best films involving public relations and the news media.

The legal and ethical issues, behaviors and motivations of central characters, and the realistic escalation of a minor mishap into a full-blown crisis all were spot-on for their time and still hold water today.

In this scene, you can actually observe the PR machinations in action without being beaten over the head with them. James Hampton is masterful as the spokesman for a nuclear power plant who invites a local TV crew (Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas) in for a fluff piece on the technology’s benefits. Pay attention as we learn his real agenda - hey, at least he’s honest about it! Hampton is at once a little too slippery for his own good and just a poor sap doing his job, and not too badly either at least for awhile.

“The China Syndrome” was a subject of controversy when Three-Mile Island suffered a partial meltdown less than two weeks after the movie’s release. Studio execs wisely pulled it from some theaters to avoid the appearance of exploitation.

Enjoy the clip, but watch the full film for an accurate portrayal of both sides of the biz and how these sorts of stories can and often do go down. Minus the hit men and SWAT teams.