With the Internet surpassing print as our main news source, newspapers going bankrupt, and outlets focusing on content they claim audiences (or is it advertisers?) want, Page One chronicles the media industry’s transformation and assesses the high stakes for democracy if in-depth investigative reporting becomes extinct.
The film deftly makes a beeline for the eye of the storm or, depending on how you look at it, the inner sanctum of the media, gaining unprecedented access to the New York Times newsroom for a year. At the media desk, a dialectical play-within-a-play transpires as writers like salty David Carr track print journalism’s metamorphosis even as their own paper struggles to stay vital and solvent. Meanwhile, rigorous journalism—including vibrant cross-cubicle debate and collaboration, tenacious jockeying for on-record quotes, and skillful page-one pitching—is alive and well. The resources, intellectual capital, stamina, and self-awareness mobilized when it counts attest there are no shortcuts when analyzing and reporting complex truths. —Sundance Film Festival
Interesting personalities abound here (particularly, of course, erstwhile Carpetbagger David Carr), and it's sorta fun to see the interior of the Times' ridiculous office and its people engaged in deadline reporting. However, the film has a hard time sticking to its theme of survival for the paper, and expends too much energy flitting between vaguely related topics.
I guess I wanted more of a look at the Times itself, rather than the changing face of media and all that.
Of all the movies that have opened this weekend, the one that's generated the most interesting press by far is Page One: Inside The New York
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