The director opines that the media are very close to crossing the line between reporting and guiding the news, and that's what his film is about. He points to the unchecked avalanche of news that hit the airwaves in the wake Princess Diana's death. From the moment the major press said she was a saint, it's accepted all over the world. No one said 'Stop. You need to be the first.
Nobody has time to think.
In the film, Hoffman continues to milk the crisis while going live on the air several times. The character had no conscience. In the finished film, Hoffman doesn't seem any more honorable than he sounds in the first script, but he has a crisis of conscience at the end that leaves him burdened with guilt about the cutthroat business that news has become. I ask Costa-Gavras if he thinks the kind of story manipulation depicted in the film is where the American press is headed. We are very close to reaching that point.