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| PAGE ONE:
A YEAR INSIDE THE NEW YORK TIMES |
Year: 2011
USA: Magnolia Pictures
UK: Dogwoof
Cast: David Carr, Tim Arango, Brian Stetler, Bruce Headlam
Director: Andrew Rossi
Country: USA
USA & UK: 91 mins
USA Rated: R for language including some sexual references
UK Certificate: 15 contains strong language and sex
references
USA Release Date: 17 June 2011 (Limited Release)
UK Release Date: 23 September 2011 (Limited Release)
Movie
reviews
Official
US website
Synopsis
"This year, the biggest story is their own."
Director Andrew Rossi camped out at the media desk of The New York
Times for 14 months. Trust me, a chronicle of the day to day
activities of out-of-shape journalists ordinarily would be like
watching grass grow. But Rossi had timing on his side: he shot while
the newspaper was struggling through a print decline that hobbled
circulation and advertising. Rossi was on hand when the paper laid
off 100 reporters. "The concept of the film was I followed
editors and reporters on the media desk as they covered stories
about changing technology as the paper itself underwent tumultuous
change and layoffs because of that technology," Rossi said.
Through the years, the fly-on-the-wall documentary has taken us on
the presidential campaign trail, into the foxholes of war and behind
the curtain with performers. In the spirit of that tradition, PAGE
ONE goes inside the newsroom at The New York Times during one of the
most tumultuous eras for journalism since the printing press was
invented to reveal a disarmingly candid portrait of the paper of
record.
Over the course of a year when WikiLeaks and Twitter emerged as
household names and publications like the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
and Washington Post either folded or significantly reduced their
operations, director Andrew Rossi gains unprecedented access to the
country's preeminent news factory. Can the foot soldiers of this
bastion of old media keep up with the fire hose of information that
is the world wide web?
Inside the Times newsroom, journalists on the media desk grapple
with the implications of their paper's decision to work with
whistleblower Julian Assange, the collapse of traditional models for
network television and print advertising, challenges to the Times'
authority in the wake of reporting failures during the run up to the
war in Iraq and the emergence of the blog voice in the pages of the
Gray Lady as exemplified by writers David Carr and Brian Stelter.
Meanwhile, they continue to uphold the values of the old-fashioned,
shoe-leather reporting that's now on the endangered list. What
emerges in the page-one meetings, spearheaded by executive editor
Bill Keller, and on the ground with reporters, is an intimate
portrait of highly skilled journalists practicing their craft while
the sky falls all around them, still hoping that readers will stick
with them, even if their work ends up behind a pay wall.
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