by bobbart:
Lois Lane not being a well-trained journalist: In LnC, Lois is an educated, award-winning journalist that takes her profession very seriously. Smallville’s Lois is little more than a tabloid-trash reporter that has worked her way onto the pages of a real news source. She has worked hard, but I believe that much of her success is more based on luck than on skill. This is what I find most disappointing and irritating about the Lois of Smallville. I just don’t think of her as a real journalist at all, and that is sad.
I have to disagree here. If anything, of all of the reporters on the show Lois is the only one in my opinion that has been shown even somewhat realistically. And I also think that her success has been much more the result of hard work and dedication than luck.
Clark has certainly not been shown doing really anything journalistically until he entered The Daily Planet. In fact, “Smallville” went out of its way to reference his efforts as “copying the lunch menu” and Clark himself commented once that he had no time for reporting in favor of his efforts on the football team.
Chloe was almost the polar opposite. She was the uber-reporter, but again we saw no real reason for this or her success. In season 1 episode 1 she is introduced as the editor of the school newspaper while still a freshman. Now, according to show canon The Torch has been in continuous publication since at least the time when Lana’s parents went there, yet there is no explanation as to how Chloe became editor or why there are only 3 freshmen working there. All we know is that she is the uber-reporter and she is in charge. Her first column at the Daily Planet is given to her not because she earned it, but rather as a payoff from Lionel Luthor for betraying Clark. When she comes back to the Planet later on she is realistically rebuffed by editor Kahn only to hired back by episode’s end for a story that Clark gave her. Thereafter Chloe is returned to her role as
deus ex machina and we never really see her writing any stories at all (and when she does it’s usually from information Clark gave her). One of the few (if not the only) times we see her actually going outside the confines of the building to investigate a story it’s Lois who is pushed to go undercover while Chloe stays in the back.
I’m not trying to bash Chloe because the simple fact is that her role on the show was different thus TPTB saw no real reason to actually show us any reason for her position or skills. She was there for plot exposition so for the story’s sake she simple “was what she was”. If she needed to be able to hack they made it so she could hack, etc.
Now, let’s look at Lois. “Smallville” is a story of beginnings and journeys so first of all we have to ask ourselves why Lois should be different in the context of the show? Also, as others above mentioned Chloe already had the role of “reporter” so obviously something different would have to be done with Lois anyway. Since Clark hadn’t set out to be a hero and Lex hadn’t set out to be a villain why shouldn’t they also show Lois to not set out to be a reporter?
Now, I’m not going to defend every move TPTB made with the character because there is much to disagree with and several things I flat out hated, but I’ll give the devil his due for some things even if I didn’t entirely like the way they were played out.
In terms of skill I think it should be noted from the outset that Lois is obviously a gifted writer. When she wrote the article for The Torch in the episode “Facade” she was referenced as being a gifted writer who actually got fan mail. This wasn’t a one shot compliment either as a few years later Grant at the Daily Planet also referenced her skill with prose.
While I wasn’t thrilled that Lois entered reporting through The Inquisitor I do have to admit that it is more believable to eventually land a job as reporter with a major newspaper like the Daily Planet with at least some real world experience at a real newspaper (not to mention a resume that included articles that garnered nation attention) as opposed to getting there with the only thing on your resume being editor of a high school newspaper and a column that the editor herself judged as “juvenile pabulum” as well as the acknowledged fact that said column was gained through unethical means. Bob Woodward himself was let go from the Washington Post after only a few months because of his inexperience and worked at a lesser newspaper for a year where he was able to gain the experience and be good enough to be rehired at the Post.
Also in terms of skill, there is the skill with investigating. Once Lois was introduced into reporting one of the things that TPTB did try to do (Stephen DeKnight referenced this in an interview) was differentiate her style of investigating (which was more in line with the traditional style of “Lois Lane”) from that of Chloe who did most of her investigating by computer. Lois was often shown going out into the field and going under cover and cultivating “sources”. During her time at the Inquisitor we saw her getting her lumps, but we also saw her writing stories that gained national attention beyond just The Inquisitor. More than once she arrived at the same end point of a story as Clark without the benefit of his “special” abilities and inside knowledge of the situation.
In fact, there were several times she was shown to be able to make logical connections between events that escaped the other members of the cast. She correctly identified the location of the underground cage fights in “Combat”, she was able to identify code as map coordinates (the episode name escapes me for the moment), and she recognized the connection between Lana’s cigarette case and her not smoking in the episode “Noir”. These are all things that are more skill and intelligence than “luck”.
This is my own personal opinion, but I think that often people tend to forget that while Lois didn’t start out at age 4 wanting to be a reporter she is one now and has actually worked in the field for a few years now and did so while facing deadlines, bureaucracy, and real world reporting struggles. When she writes a list of “Top Ten Rules of Reporting” I can actually buy it even if she has only been doing it for 3 years. That’s still 3 years longer than Clark.
