Ben Affleck gets journalistic insight

2 Apr 2009  

BEN AFFLECK has vowed to treat journalists with more respect - after gaining an insight into the profession while he was filming his latest movie.
 
The actor admits that despite dealing with the press throughout his career, he had very little understanding of reporters and the workings of the media industry.
 
Affleck stars in upcoming political thriller State Of Play, which tells the story of a team of investigative journalists who try to solve the murder of a congressman's mistress.
 
And the actor is glad to have made the movie - because it has given him a different view of the people who interview him on on a regular basis.
 
He tells MTV, "I definitely have a more full understanding of the pressures journalists face.
 
"My previous conversations with journalists were all one-sided. Even though I wasn't playing a journalist, the story is about empathising with a guy who is a journalist. (I now realise) that journalists are ambitious and competing with each other inside institutions and that the institutions themselves have to compete with one another to stay afloat.

"I never understood those dynamics very well, so I've gained an appreciation for that, and it changed the way I saw things."