November 17, 2011 -- Reporters and editors at the New York Times are caught up in the turmoil of technological change, the biggest media bankruptcy in U.S. history and the Wikileaks scandal, all at the same time in this documentary film that takes you inside an iconic newspaper in the midst enormous changes and challenges.

In a kind of scatter shot approach, the film follows several key reporters and editors as they navigate their way through some major stories amid changes at the newspaper. One key character is David Carr, a former drug addict and tough-as-nails media reporter. Carr is on the trail of a big story, the impending bankruptcy of the Tribune company, the biggest media bankruptcy in U.S. history. He's getting the inside story from current and former employees and others. We see him cajole his sources, trying to get people to go on the record. Carr is one hell of a reporter. When another reporter asks him if he's worried about losing his job due to corporate downsizing at the Times, Carr's response is of course not. “I was a single parent on welfare,” Carr says. He's not afraid of anything after that.

The film shows some people in the news room being laid off after 20 or 30 years or more on the job. They are crying as they pack up their things to leave. People who got in the news business 20 years ago thought they'd be in it forever. After all a lot of newspapers have been around for over 100 years. It turns out not to be a secure job after all. Newspapers, including the New York Times are hemorrhaging money. Newspaper advertising is way down and newspapers haven't figured out a good way to make money off the internet, but they are trying to adapt to the new information delivery technologies.

We see Carr attend several panel discussions about the future of the news business. A subject brought up is what happens if the New York Times goes out of business. People who know nothing about journalism say things like the world would be better off without the Times. Some would lump the Times in with the “lamestream media.” Citing past examples like the mistaken stories that helped get the U.S. into the Iraq war, or scandals of reporters plagiarizing or making up stories, some critics say the Times is going broke because people don't believe it anymore. Carr has little patience for such superficial arguments.

Carr and others make the argument that you can't get the news you need from a bunch of guys typing opinions on computer keyboards in their mother's basements. For some stories, you need foreign bureaus, you need money to pay professional reporters to pursue stories at great expense for months on end. Unfortunately, there is no business model that makes investigative reporting like this profitable. Some people are trying to accomplish similar coverage with non-profit corporations working in cooperation with for-profit news organizations. A lot of things are being tried. Meanwhile, major newspapers like the Rocky Mountain News are closing down.

Even those newspapers still afloat, like the Washington Post, are much weaker than they once were, according to the film. Their news staffs have been cut severely. Carl Bernstein, who broke the Watergate story along with Bob Woodward, for the Post talks about the months of work that went into that series of reports. It takes an organization with deep pockets to pursue that kind of story. A lot of papers are cutting back on their coverage. In the film, it is noted that newspapers and other media used to charter airline planes for the press corps to follow the president on trips. They don't do that as much anymore. A lot of foreign bureaus are being closed.

The film shows reporters and editors working on Wikileaks stories. There is a flashback to the Pentagon Papers stories during the Vietnam war. That was when the U.S. newspapers stood up against the power of the government and won, eventually in the Supreme Court. The question is, do newspapers have the power and will to be that independent anymore, and would the Supreme Court back them this time? The film flips back and forth between all these issues. The role of the Times as “gatekeeper” of the news and its role in setting the national news agenda has changed, but it is still relevant. Times news stories still form the basis of much of the hard news that is found on the internet. The film seems a bit disorganized in its approach, but it has some powerful scenes in it. This is a thought-provoking film for those interested in journalism. This film rates a B.

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Copyright © 2011 Robert Roten. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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