This fly-on-the-wall documentation of life inside the New York Times (mostly following the exploits of Head of Media, David Carr) ultimately raises more questions than it answers, while along the way providing intriguing insight into the overall challenges faced by print media in a digital world, in particular the crunch at the venerable ‘Gray-Lady’: the New York Times. Its slogan ‘all the news that’s fit to print’ is re-examined in the light of the question now being: to print or print online.
With traditional print media outlets closing down under the joint pressures of dwindling readership and disappearing advertising revenues, what is the role of print media in a predominantly digital context? This documentary raises issues around the authenticity and provenance of news reporting, with regard to both digital and print media; as well as the soft lines between bias, opinion and agenda, public interest and national conscience, in a world where the printed word is increasingly bits and bytes rather than ink.
Until the London riots shoved it roughly from the front pages, the media itself in the UK – in particular the questionable practises and dubious investigative journalism at the now defunct News of the World – was under intense scrutiny, revealing overlaps at highest levels.
With both the previous administration and the present incumbents in the UK courting the media in all its forms (not least illustrated in the recently released ‘meeting list’ detailing visits Rupert Murdoch made to No.10 via ‘the back door’), there is an obvious need to understand of the power and influence of news, both in terms of production and distribution. The news and how it is produced for audience consumption is a matter of public interest as well as public influence. Increasingly, particularly in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal and the explosion of WikiLeaks onto the news scene, we the readers are also interested in who produces the news and why – what their agenda might be.
Newspapers act as a conscience and also a bridge between government and public. The support of a particular paper for a particular policy or party can have a dramatic impact. One of the many talking heads interviewed for this documentary describes this as “the apparatus of accountability”.
If the news is the country’s conscience then it’s vital to know whose agenda drives the way that news is presented and to reconsider our own expectations of the news. We expect reporting to be implicitly fair and unbiased, and obtained in an appropriate i.e. non-criminal fashion. Yet what seems obvious is that we also expect a significant amount of news to be free. Or do we? Are we willing to pay for that journalist integrity we hold dear? The point is made that without institutions with significant resources, investigative journalism becomes increasingly difficult.
We meet Bill Keller, Executive Editor, drafted in to rebuild faith in the paper after the Jayson Blair plagiarism scandal, and it’s clear that an examination of the integrity of news reporting and the journalists who report it has never been more relevant. Fortunately, it seems that for every Blair, there’s a Heather Brooke (journalist who exposed the largest governmental expenses scandal in UK ) and whilst this is not explicitly stated, it is implied. Solid, quality journalism still exists and readers will seek it out.
We rely on particular news outlets, based on years of solid investigative integrity, to provide us with ‘the truth’ and despite our growing addiction to online sources of breaking news (tweets driving democratic protests as well as opportunistic rioting, or a blogger inadvertently letting the world know Osama bin Laden’s been found), we find ourselves turning to certain institutions as beacons of reliability. This point is highlighted in the film by the blogger who makes good by getting on staff at the New York Times. When he was only 18, Brian Stelter founded an anonymous blog that became de rigour reading for the broadcast community. Now a NYT staff writer, it’s a mark of status that his reporting has risen from self-starter online blog to space at arguably the most important news desk in the world and certainly one of the most influential – demonstrated by the White House’s request for their intervention with WikiLeaks.
The fact that WikiLeaks chose to break a story in conjunction with three leading papers of integrity across the world (The New York Times, The Guardian and de Spiegel) belie Keller’s comment that the online world doesn’t need the print world – when referencing Watergate, Keller tells his staff that “Ellsberg needed us. WikiLeaks doesn’t.” In fact, what the online world looks for in the print world is the halo of integrity. What the film comes to is the only sensible conclusion about the way forward – a hybrid arrangement between print and online reporting.
The preview screening contained a cross section of journalists from all media types, both print and digital. There was a palpable air during Rupert Murdoch’s only sound-byte of the film: he is the single most recognisable figure in news media today and having bought The Wall Street Journal, may well have an interest in acquiring The New York Times (presently owned by The New York Times Company, with chairman Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jnr.)
Technically, the documentary itself is patchy in places – as might be expected from being made by a one-man documentarian Andrew Rossi, who was ‘embedded’ for just over a year, giving him unprecedented access to the newsroom at one of the world’s largest and most respected newspapers. The choice of music appears didactic in places but that is a stylistic preference and is unlikely to distract too much.
The soundtrack is uneven, with voice-overs sometimes overlapping, making it difficult to follow the thread of a particular argument or be sure whose opinion is being presented and there isn’t a strong narrative thread. The concept of the two critical meetings that bookend each day at the New York Times (in which stories are pitched, personal points scored and final decisions made as to what makes it into the paper) is introduced about a third of the way in, which makes for a somewhat uneven and unstructured narrative in a film that is nonetheless worth watching.
There is a surprising predominance of white male culture, with women appearing infrequently in the overall narrative – one notable quote from luminary Susan Chira (Foreign Editor) regarding source versus partner in the Wikileaks debate, being the exception – or cast in the light of ‘digital baddie’ (e.g. Adriana Huffington). Whether this is simply the result of Rossi’s POV being fixed on Carr or whether this is the endemic culture, is not clear. If this is the dominant culture, it suggests white men can’t jump because they’re busy dominating the media world! However, when commenting on corporate culture, it’s worth remembering that the paper has been in print continuously since 1851, has won 106 Pulitzers (the most of any news organisation) and is focussed on bringing talented folk through its doors. Take for instance the case of Andrew Ross Sorkin, chief mergers and acquisitions reporter, who started working for the NYT before graduating high school.
The scenes in which David Carr is waxing dogmatic about the paper, yet witty with it, are entertaining and add humour and although they sometimes come across as one man petulantly protecting his patch, they are probably an accurate description, as staff resources are clearly limited and stretched. If the news is a barometer of our conscience then Carr isn’t a bad torchbearer, his colourful crack addiction and recovery history giving him a deep sense of resilience, having already been through the worst of the worst.
There is a sense here of swan-song for newspapers in the printed form and yet there is also a sort of meandering recognition that what was of true value in the traditional print setups may well be the quality of the reporting and that readers will flock to that in whatever form it takes. Increasingly the news breaks online and a reader may get a heads-up into a story from a tweet and then find out more by following the story through free online resources (blogs, broadcast news), looking to established media for editorial comment, news analysis or the examining of story integrity; all the hallmarks of quality reporting. If paywall experiments at the New York Times online (as well as similar experiments at Murdoch’s The Times in the UK ) turn a profit, then the answer is yes and the best of the print giants will live on, albeit on screens.
Though it meanders, Page One made Official Selection at Raindance 2011 and, like the river of journalism it observes, is deep and wide, taking in many places along the way. This makes it a must-see for aspiring journalists across the publishing spectrum and well worth a look for anyone else interested in news, if only as a sketch of the last days of print media and to see those formidable printing presses in action. Although this reviewer suspects that truly great print media (like great vinyl) adapt, go online, finds their vintage niche and never die.
Cast: David Carr, Brian Stelter, Bill Keller, Susan Chira, Julian Assange
Dir. Andrew Rossi, USA , 2011, 92 mins
xx - posted on 23/05/2012 13:13:28
