Well, anyway, "Page One: Inside the New York Times" is another documentary that offered an interesting topic and an opportunity to learn. Not that I'm unfamiliar with the New York Times. Although, truth be told, when I'm in New York, I'm likely to read the Daily News.
Nevertheless, as I contemplated a movie about the New York Times, I harkened back to the ninth grade. I actually had a class called "Current Events" taught by some string bean named Mr. Cawley. Yes, there was such a course. And the textbook for us was the New York Times. Our teacher had an almost inappropriate affectation for the newspaper. I remember that the first weeks of the semester were spent literally on the proper way to fold the paper in quarters for commuter train reading. Seriously.
Mr. Cawley also spent a great deal of time showing us how the stories flowed on page one from right to left and top to bottom in terms of importance. He was teaching at Mount Vernon High School, but I always thought that, inside Mr. Cawley, was the soul of a frustrated national editor. Eventually, we did actually get around to discussing the news we read in the paper.
But, it's not like he infused in me a lifetime loyalty to the New York Times. As I mentioned, the Daily News was always a better fit for me. It had great sports coverage and terrific comics like Blondie and Dick Tracy. Meanwhile, the New York Times had no funnies, snooty and overrated sports columnists like Dave Anderson and George Vecsey, and a crossword puzzle that required a diploma from Yale. Over the years, I would buy the Times only on Sunday, solely to look at all the ads for the new shows coming to Broadway.
Of late, I've avoided the New York Times for other reasons. There have been very public accounts of shoddy journalism and a serious bias in its writing. While I still read every day the Los Angeles Times mainly for the comics and a Sudoku puzzle, I acknowledge that it has become a horrible newspaper. But, the New York Times is arguably not far behind.
This is a long way in saying that a movie about the inner workings of a renowned newspaper that may or may not be falling apart had some appeal to me. At its conclusion, I had instilled in me a bit more respect for the big Gray Lady on 43rd Street in New York. No, I'm not going to subscribe to the national edition. But, at least, I can appreciate a lot of what the Times denizens are going through in 2011.
This captivating film focuses on several members of the Times department that focuses on developments in the media. Indeed, their major task over the past several years has been to report on the demise of a variety of longstanding media institutions, most particularly newspapers. Nobody gets their news anymore in devices that have black ink that rubs off on your fingers. Everything is digital as you are news-enlightened by cable news networks, Tweets, websites, and blogs. Newspapers are becoming more and more of an afterthought. This is the world the Times guys are now reporting on, even perhaps anticipating their own demise.
Naturally, in 2011, everybody with a blog has an opinion (sorry) and some are taken as gospel. Therefore, there is purported news that is not fact at all and even the New York Times can fall victim to this as they did during the recent Wikileaks scandal. The Times got sucked into this and suffered greatly. Good, unbiased journalism is dying a slow and tortured death and even the New York Times is not immune to the disease.
Yet, their reporters persist and, in this movie, you fall particularly in love with media writer David Carr. He's a former crack addict who has gotten his life together and now has some deliciously rough edges. If you're working in a media organization, you want him on the payroll. He looks around and see the industry changing not for the better, but still strives to keep step and still not forget that, at his very heart and soul, he needs to be a good reporter. A fascinating guy, the portion of the movie that showed him digging into the impending bankruptcy of the rival Tribune Company is almost as good as anything you saw in "All The President's Men."
These guys are coping as their jobs and careers face uncertain turns on almost a daily basis. They deal with a business model that now has the New York Times caving in and charging for internet access. It is the only way they can survive. And, amidst, the pompous sturm and drang from the blogosphere, they have to compete professionally and with dignity. When there are slip-ups, you can hardly blame them.
"Page One: Inside the New York Times" is worth a look, especially if you look for the days when a morning newspaper in your hands had just the right feel as you ate some Special K flakes or chomped on a bagel with cream cheese. Somehow, it's not a fluid process if you attempt the same on an iPad.
And, on a touch screen, how would Mr. Cawley be able to describe to us the correct way to fold the New York Times?
Dinner last night: Chili con carne.
1 comment:
In the legal biz, consumers think that their blogs are evidence of the claims they make. I claim it. Done. Scary stuff.
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