The Devil Wears Prada 2 might be the most compelling film about modern journalism
Sunday, 17 May 2026
Stewart Sowman-Lund’s media column, The Sunday Report - dissecting talking points from NZ media, entertainment and pop culture - appears weekly on Sundays on thepost.co.nz and in the Sunday Star-Times.
OPINION: Would you really expect The Devil Wears Prada 2 to have something to say about the world?
The answer is probably no.
The long-awaited sequel to the cult 2006 comedy about the world of fashion was released at the end of last month, reuniting stars Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt alongside a seemingly never-ending list of unusual cameos - from Lady Gaga to Rory McIlroy.
It’s become a bona fide hit, one of the biggest films of the year so far with almost half a billion at the US box office from a budget a fifth of that size.
That’s great for the film business, great for theatres and, oddly, it might be great for journalists too.
Hear me out, but The Devil Wears Prada 2 might just be the best film about the state of modern journalism.
Early in the piece, Hathaway’s Andy Sachs, the protagonist of the film, loses her job at a respected newspaper after the rich owner decides to lay off the entire newsroom in one fell swoop. That happens just as Sachs is on stage collecting a prize for, we are led to believe, some very worthy journalism.
A bit on the nose, but sure, times are tough and newsrooms are under threat.
“Journalism f..ing matters,” says Sachs at the awards ceremony, in a video that soon goes viral.
Which brings her back into the world of Miranda Priestly, played by Streep, the not-quite-but-almost Anna Wintour, editor of Runway Magazine, the not-quite-but-almost Vogue.
What follows is a film about the challenges of surviving in a modern newsroom. Nobody is reading the print edition of Runway, and so the brand relies on cheap, clickbait articles to appease advertisers and stay afloat.
These are all realities that real newsrooms face.
Just this week, local outlet The Spinoff launched a new fundraising drive in an effort to gain an additional 5000 paying members by year’s end - a 38% increase in its membership. The company said the dual pressures of generative AI and the “flight of advertising revenue” to overseas tech giants were behind the latest fundraising plea.
Newsroom, too, has urged its readers to support it, saying that “serious journalism is under immense pressure around the world and even more so in a small economy like New Zealand”.
The Post website, which also houses content from the Sunday Star-Times, is similarly attempting to prove that paying for digital journalism that may traditionally have only been found in print is the only way to ensure its survival. Meanwhile, digital-only platforms like Substack are showing that a direct pipeline between writers and readers is a model that can work, and may be the future of news.
None of this is explored in any great detail in The Devil Wears Prada 2, sure, but I did have to hold back some polite applause during a particularly impassioned speech about why journalism remains important.
Hathaway’s character is tasked with trying to create important journalism that people want to read, leading a features department that struggles to get cut through.
It’s running “worthy” stories, but nobody’s clicking on them.
A big scoop is almost undermined by a director takeover that results in - you guessed it - more staff cuts, restructures, and an opportunity to re-frame journalism for the modern, shrunken age.
We’re not done yet, though, with a brief AI subplot thrown in for good measure - a potential new buyer for Runway Magazine proclaims that within a few years, there might not even be a need for writers, photographers, models or fashion. AI will handle all that, he claims.
A terrifying thought, almost certainly held by some of those with the deepest pockets - those who are increasingly tightening their grasp on media platforms.
All of this is handled with the seriousness a film like The Devil Wears Prada 2 demands - Spotlight it is not.
But I’m not alone in seeing the film as a surprise for how it tackles the issue. Here’s what Forbes said: “The first film came out during a time when ‘legacy media’ and ‘dream job’ didn’t look incongruous in the same sentence, while the sequel is a dramedy bolted onto an at-times dispiriting tale about the contemporary media landscape.”
Another headline describes it as a “harrowing documentary” about what’s happening to journalism, while Paste Magazine said it captured the “maddening reality” of working as a writer.
While it’s entirely possible the film’s slightly self-important message about the value of journalism may not be the most memorable element for many cinema-goers (there’s a full Lady Gaga song and dance moment), I left with admiration that a legacy sequel to a two-decades-old popcorn movie chose to try and say something about the state of the world that it has been released into.
In other news…
The Westport News has apologised to a pair of government ministers after publishing a story that included “fabricated” quotes. In its apology, the outlet said two fake quotes were attributed to ministers Chris Bishop and James Meager, and were included in the story “because of a lack of source checking”. Bishop shared the apology to his Facebook with the caption: “Oops”. In a statement to the Star-Times, chief reporter Lee Scanlon said, “in short we stuffed up”. She said it was a simple case of “human error made while working quickly to meet a deadline for publication”, after a web-based AI summary was mistaken for an official press release. “There was no intent to mislead anyone, and it’s only right that we corrected the error and printed ministers’ comments.”
As it gears up to lose its catalogue of HBO shows, SKY’s Neon service launched a snazzy rebrand this week and announced a swathe of new programmes are on the way. A press statement described the new catalogue as including “a curated mix of content from a range of leading global partners”, among them Paramount, Sony Pictures Television, NBCUniversal, BBC Studios and A24. It comes at the expense of HBO Max content, which will leave the service on June 16 as the American streamer readies to launch in New Zealand. Because what we all need is just one more streaming service.
It’s been a big week for local reality TV fans. The Traitors NZ has confirmed it will return later this month for a brand new season on Three, thanks to NZ On Air funding, sacrificing host Paul Henry for new face Madeleine Sami. If you haven’t seen The Traitors, this is the perfect time to jump onboard - Celebrity Traitors UK will return for season two later this year with a formidable line-up of contestants. I am also formally launching my candidacy to be on the next season of Traitors NZ, if any producers are reading this (though don’t look at my application video for the last season). Meanwhile, Celebrity Treasure Island continues to demonstrate how tricky it is to naturally weave in sponsored content - its Fresh Choice challenge this week was somehow both inspired and egregious. I loved it.