Based on the Marvel Comics character by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, he was adapted to screen by David Koepp, Sam Raimi, Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, and Jon Watts.

He is introduced as a blustering, grumpy, loudmouthed individual who retains an extreme distaste for the emerging vigilante Spider-Man, and takes significant pride in carrying out an unrelenting smear campaign against him and driving a rift in public opinion on his heroics.

He later hires Eddie Brock to expose a perceived history of Spider-Man's criminal activity, only to reluctantly fire and retract his photos upon the revelation they were doctored from similar pictures taken by Parker himself.

An alternate Jameson appears in the MCU, depicted as the bald executive reporter of the sensationalist news website TheDailyBugle.net, intent on similarly defaming Spider-Man after his civilian persona is exposed through the use of doctored footage provided by an associate of the supervillain Mysterio.

He eventually hires Betty Brant, one of Parker's classmates from the Midtown School of Science and Technology, as an unpaid intern to aid his ongoing efforts to expose the vigilante.

[4] The character was featured in a trilogy of live-action films directed by Sam Raimi with J. K. Simmons portraying the role of J. Jonah Jameson, with installments released from 2002 to 2007.

[8] Simmons briefly reprises his role as a re-imagined version of J. Jonah Jameson in the live-action MCU film Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019).

According to Feige, the changes in the real world also meant that moving the character from a newspaper editor to a "radical right news journalist that kind of scream[s] in front of the camera" made more sense.

Jameson is also shown to have a cynical, obnoxious attitude and brusque manner with his staff, though he willingly protects Parker when the Green Goblin demands to know the identity of Spider-Man's photographer.

One year later, now taking heart medication for stress, Jameson orders Parker and new hire Eddie Brock to obtain a photograph of Spider-Man proving his true criminal nature in exchange for earning a secure staff job in place of their usual freelance work, which Brock seemingly obtains.

During a subsequent fight between the symbiote Venom and the Sandman against Spider-Man and the New Goblin, Jameson, unable to locate Parker, reluctantly buys a camera from a little girl in the surrounding crowd for one hundred dollars.

In 2024, Jameson is provided a doctored video exposing Spider-Man's identity as Peter Parker by William Ginter Riva, a former working associate of Mysterio, prompting him to broadcast it to the entire world.

[16] Months later, The Daily Bugle crew set up an interview with Jameson and electrical worker Nelson Burke, who witnessed Spider-Man's fight with Electro and tells his accurate account of events.

Jameson discredits Burke and ends the interview,[16] before going to the condominium in Long Island where Parker is, witnessing the lights get burnt out, Doctor Octopus falling out of a window and escaping, the Lizard breaking out of a F.E.A.S.T.