Documentary Pick: Page One: Inside the New York Times
You don’t have to be a media reporter to know that this has been a rough couple of years for the newspaper industry. The combination of the economic crash in 2008, the shift to the internet as a means of getting the news, and the loss of important advertising revenue tools converged several years ago resulting in the a long, sustained period of bad news for the print industry. What a fascinating time for a bug on the wall documentary about one of the biggest newspapers in the world, pre or post-crash.
Andrew Rossi’s Page One: Inside the New York Times mentions once the old proverb, a blessing and a curse, “may you live in interesting times.” 2009-10 were certainly interesting times for the Times as they struggled to stay relevant and competitive in a world that seemed to have outgrown newspapers. Through eyes of the Times media reporting office, which is fronted by editor Bruce Headlam and features reporters David Carr, Richard Perez-Pena, Brian Stelter and Tim Arango, we get a first hand view of the changing media landscape by those who are reporting on it as it happens. Not just the state of newspapers, but the rise of Wikileaks, the merger of Comcast and NBC, and the collapse of the Tribune media group.
Rossi got incredible access to the Times and its staff, and while there’s a definite bend to Page One where it wants you to stop and admire this newspaper, “The paper of record,” for being the great institution it is, the doc is also a keen reminder of its importance. The organization, the checks and balances, the freedom to allow pursuit of a story because everyone there is working their day job – but it’s hard to assign and gather dollars for that value when everything online has been cultivated in the spirit of free. As mentioned more than once, what would happen to these venerated online publications that aggregate the news if there was nobody to aggregate from?
More often than not David Carr is leaned on as the doc’s hero, and it’s easy to see why. He’s an old school newspaper man and the Times’ gladiator on fighting the drive of new media to sweep away the old. He has a fascinating life story, and is relentless in his defense of the industry, even getting adversarial with the leadership of Vice while profiling them for his column. Carr is scrappy, as the newspaper industry is scrappy.
It may be years since you last read one, at least in its physical form, but you’re still pulling for them, and Page One is pretty effective advocate and rallying point on that account. Newspapers are down, but they’re not yet out. Yet.
