The Power of the Press  (1928), an early film by Frank Capra forgotten even by the director himself, is revived in this essay as a vibrant plea for human dignity in the face of the growing—and often opaque—power of the media. In an age of algorithms dictating headlines and technologies that dilute the truth, this silent film cries out loud:  “Stop the machines!” Gracia Prats-Arolas and José-Alfredo Peris-Cancio analyze the film from a bioethical and personalist perspective, showing how resistance to rushed narratives—and to indifference to suffering—remains essential for truly human journalism. Between nostalgia and urgency, this reading invites us to rethink what it means to report without losing sight of the mystery of each person.

A film omitted by Capra in his autobiography

The Power of the Press (  1928 ) is a film that does not appear in Capra’s autobiography ^[1] . An omission that is difficult to explain. Perhaps it slipped the director’s mind due to the accumulation of films he shot in that same year, 1928. For some, this is an indication that we are dealing with a minor work by the filmmaker of Sicilian origin. This approach seems justified. In fact, in  The Power of the Press  we find the film that best represents Capra’s own values ​​and that characterize his work, what we conceptualize as his cinematic personalism ^[2] .

Some commentators on Capra’s filmography, such as Joseph McBride, consider that the most remarkable aspect of this film is a fragment that has the characteristics of a documentary ^[3] . He refers to those moments in which, after fifteen minutes of footage, we witness a rigorous description of the newspaper production process, as it was managed in the United States during the late twenties. Others see it ^[4]  as nothing more than a mirage, given the trivial tone of the rest of the film. They even suggest that it could have been Capra’s frustration at not having been able to carry out a project more critical of the world of journalism which could have explained why he did not mention it in his autobiography.

A story about the resistance of the truth of the person in the face of the growing power of the press

We’re not sure this is a proper interpretation. We don’t find it plausible that such a judgment could explain why it didn’t appear in Capra’s account of his own work. Throughout those pages, the director expressed himself with complete freedom, so we don’t see why he would have refrained from making a critical comment about those who had prevented him from properly developing the film.

We adhere to what one of us was able to write with the master José Sanmartín ^[5] , about the harmony between the descriptive story about the world of newspaper publishing and the human story that accompanies the plot. At that time we maintained that the keys were: a) “The childlike innocence of the male protagonist”; b) “The maturation of the protagonist’s personality in the encounter with the woman”; c) “The decisive importance of the man/woman relationship in understanding the demands of citizen justice”; d) “The presence of productive modernity and the need to direct it with a human sense”; e) “The power of the press  vs.  The power of a tear”. Now, favored by the desire to develop a bioethical perspective, we intensify even that proposal and consider that we are faced with “a story about the resistance of the truth of the person in the face of the growing power of the press.”

Because, as Michel Cieutat ^[6] rightly points out ,  The Power of the Press  is the most characteristic of the director’s films made in 1928. It already contains the themes that would underlie the director’s core convictions throughout his filmography. And far from answering the question of what the power of the press is, he poses it very appropriately: it does not reside in the strength of a technology that gradually develops an increase in the capacity to print many newspapers in a short time. Nor in how it can influence elections and the course of politics.

The power to approach the mystery that is the person from the analysis of the circumstances and events around him

For Capra, the true power of the press finds a clear analogy with what Carola Minguet points out as the purpose of the best journalism.

“…trying to approach the mystery that is the person by analyzing the circumstances and events around him… Normally, the purpose of a news story is to answer the what, the how, the when of an opinion, to justify or criticize that what, when, and that how. But what if the perspective were different? The reader doesn’t just need facts, but also keys to transcend and interpret them. “Journalism will soon die if it remains ignorant,” Chesterton warned. ^[7]

We believe that this personal approach to journalism outlined by Dr. Minguet fully coincides with the proposal of  The Power of the Press.  The film’s most enduring aspect is not the images reminiscent of a documentary, but the stories and events at the service of the film. The film’s plot does not stray from an authentic reflection on the press. It embodies it, gives it body and life, in keeping with the director’s approach.

We see this in the opening scenes. The newsroom is presented with successive editing tables. There is a clear disarray in all of them, with papers hanging everywhere, and journalists behind their typewriters, each one characterized in a unique way. Capra portrays the bustle of a humanity receptive to the news, which is not to be confused with the functional and aseptic precision of the editing machines. He wants to make it clear that it is humanity that holds the reins of journalism.

“A sunny day, health, and happiness for everyone is what I promise today.”

The protagonist, Clem Rogers (Douglas Fairbanks), symbolizes this humanity in the most intense way. In charge of writing the weather report, he does not limit himself to providing the information that “ the weatherman promises a sunny day for today ,” but in a key analogous to Emerson’s writings ^[8] , He looks for what such a fact can mean for the lives of the people in his community and continues writing in this way: “ Think what this means for the birds and the flowers, think what it means for the farmer who makes happy that hard work on whose shoulders rests the wealth of the country. Think of the mothers and children in the parks and in the fields, in the babbling brooks. A sunny day, health and happiness for all is what I promise today .”

Immediately afterward, the editor (Robert Edeson) will delete almost the entire text and allow only the first sentence to be published, the one stating the mere fact of a sunny day. The justification seems almost obvious: the press should only publish facts. But the entire plot that Capra then presents not only seems entertaining and dynamic, as it unfolds at a frenetic pace. It implies something more decisive: it shows that facts alone are never enough… unless there is greater perseverance or resilience to interpret them truthfully.

Clem is sent to investigate the murder of the district attorney. There, he surprises Jane Atwill (Jobyna Ralston), the daughter of the mayoral candidate, jumping out of a side window of the house. He tries to stop her, but fails. As the girl flees, he asks another man to chase her from his car, parked a few yards away. It turns out to be Van (Wheeler Oakman), the real killer. It is he who will offer Clem the interpretive account of why the young woman behaved the way she did: she was the one who committed the crime.

With this information and his interpretation, Clem gets his newspaper, the  Times,  to “stop the presses” and put a new headline on the front page: “Candidate’s Daughter Implicated in District Judge’s Murder.” Having discovered this scoop puts him ahead of the other editors, particularly star reporter Bill Jones (Dell Henderson), with whom he has a clear rivalry that gives rise to frequent slapstick humor.

“We journalists must print the news without caring who it hurts.”

However, Clem will be honest enough to acknowledge the hasty nature of the news that has spread among readers. The facts could have been different. And she discovers this when Jane goes to the newspaper to criticize the man who has ruined her reputation and her father’s electoral career.

At first, she reacts with her learned professionalism: ” We journalists should print the news no matter who it hurts .” But when she breaks down in despair and cries, Clem believes her and seeks out the editor to change the interpretation they were giving to the events by means of a new cover.

The Spanish edition of the film rightly titled it “The Power of a Tear,” because here again Capra’s personalist thesis is concentrated: the power of the press lies in doing true justice to human suffering. And sometimes only tears can express the extent to which an innocent person is being made to suffer ^[9] .

Some Capra scholars find this a rather implausible reaction. It isn’t if we realize that it fits perfectly with the innocence of Clem’s character. If she believed Van, she can even more easily give authority to an emotional reaction like Jane Atwill’s, the authenticity of which she doesn’t doubt. Perhaps it’s a worrying fact, both then and now, that we don’t know how to believe the victims’ cries, because it undoubtedly makes their situation worse.

An example of this skeptical reaction is the editor-in-chief, who not only is unwilling to change the newspaper’s line on Jane’s suspicions, but, at Clem’s insistence, fires him without batting an eye. This marks a maturation in the young man’s journalistic practice: he seeks to back up his hunches with evidence and conducts an investigation that, in summary, links the murderer, Van, to Atwill’s mayoral opponent, Robert Blake (Philo McCullough). A corrupt politician, he is a clear precursor to the characters Edward Arnold would later play in  Mr. Smith Goes to Washington  (1939) and  John Doe  (1941). Triumphant, he returns to the newspaper with Van, the real murderer, and Marie Weston (Mildred Harris), the witness to Blake’s gang’s dealings, to once again launch the cry for rectification: ” Stop the presses. ” The truth demands a new headline.

We want to emphasize that Blake’s reason for murdering the prosecutor is that he knows of his relationship with a woman of dubious conduct, who has had trouble with the law, named Marie Weston. Blake isn’t content with just killing the public servant; he kidnaps Marie so no one can find out about her. Capra portrays her not as a femme fatale, but as someone who yearns to be treated with respect for her personal status, in a way consistent with his personalism that emphasizes the dignity of women. When Clem rescues her, she collaborates as a new heroine, brave and determined. Blake’s crime against her isn’t that she is his lover. It’s that he maintains a relationship with her that completely lacks respect for her status as a woman. This is by no means a trivial element of the plot.

The greater the technological development, the greater the care for people will have to be reciprocally.

The Power of the Press,  with its dual description of the world of the press, is very close to  Submarine  (1928), which we analyzed in a previous contribution ^[10] . It is part of an indictment of technology, so necessary at the beginning of the 20th century and today. The coordinates of the reflection are very eloquent: the greater the technological development, the greater the care for people must be reciprocally. The subordination of the dignity of people to advances in technology without sufficient discernment will be an opportunity to critically exercise resistance in favor of the truth of the person, of their dignity and of their mystery.

Josep Maria Esquirol persuades us that the greatest effect of the tyranny of technology on people is that it produces disintegration, as Max Picard ^[11] already pointed out  in the wake of the advent of Nazism and its impact on Western culture. The apparent simplicity of Capra’s cinema in  The Power of the Press  is that it does not allow information technology to swallow up the experience of closeness between people.

The neighbor, the home, everyday life, and care are elements of a philosophy of proximity that has recognized the experience of nihilism and exposure as founding. These elements of proximity allow themselves to be integrated into the meaning of resistance. Ordinary people have always known this: resistance is worthwhile. Philosophical reflection arrives late—as always—but it arrives. What moves it, however, means that it cannot linger contentedly. Inevitably, it questions the deferred meaning of resistance. It glimpses that resistance has even more meaning than it seems; it glimpses, in resistance, a strange confidence, and then it recognizes that it itself—philosophical reflection—has always been part of this resistance, and it discovers that questioning is also a prayer. ^[12]

Conclusion: Our lack of awareness of who and how governs us is part of our plight.

Alasdair MacIntyre (1929-2025).

The nostalgia that Capra’s films often provoke is that in them the protagonists are well-defined. In  The Power of the Press,  Clem trusts Jane Atwill, and manages to unmask the mobster Robert Blake and his henchmen. It is a world of proximity—with neighbors. However, in our days the supposed technological advances that are proposed to us are wrapped in a cloak of lack of transparency and ambiguity in which we sense that the best and the worst are amalgamated. Reputed thinkers of our time have detected this, who have focused their attention on Artificial Intelligence, warning us about whether we are dealing with ethics or ideology ^[13] .

It’s appropriate to conclude this contribution with a nod to the  recently deceased philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, who a few decades ago warned of the risks of continuing to pursue progress without ethical discernment. In his face, we should, like Clem, ask that “the machines stop,” in the hope that resilient progress united with truth may emerge, rather than continuing to be driven by what is imposed through the diffuse maneuvers of power.

…what matters now is the construction of local forms of community, within which civility, moral life, and intellectual life can be sustained through the new dark ages that are already falling upon us. And if the tradition of virtue was able to survive the horrors of past dark ages, we are not entirely without hope. However, in our time, the barbarians are not waiting on the other side of the borders; they have been ruling us for some time. And our lack of awareness of this constitutes part of our plight. We are not waiting for Godot, but for another, doubtless very different, Saint Benedict . ^[14] 

Gracia Prats-Arolas – Professor and researcher in Philosophy and Film – Catholic University of Valencia

Jose Alfredo Peris-Cancio  – Professor and researcher in Philosophy and Film – Member of the Bioethics Observatory – Catholic University of Valencia