Irish Film Institute -PAGE ONE: INSIDE THE NEW YORK TIMES

PAGE ONE: INSIDE THE NEW YORK TIMES

Director: ANDREW ROSSI

88 minutes| U.S.A.| 2011| Colour| D-Cinema


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As American newspapers topple like ninepins into bankruptcy, there could be no better time for a behind-the-scenes documentary on the nation’s most revered print media institution. Not inappropriately, Andrew Rossi’s fly-on-the-wall camera largely covers the paper’s new media desk, where staff track the ever-shifting online landscape as it impacts on news gathering – and indeed, as the Times itself becomes the story, its financial travails and internet paywall launch proceeding in concert. If the plush offices and confident talk from journos and editors alike indicate a seemingly innate sense of entitlement, the film marshals an absorbing argument for the unquestionable value of the paper’s reportage, in marked contrast to websites which simply recycle the Times’ material. Ace correspondent David Carr, a former junkie with a wickedly focused wit, is the movie’s trump card however, offering pithy putdowns and fighting spirit aplenty. He’s the scrappy, snappy human face on the ongoing battle to convince the public that serious news is worth their dollar. (Notes by Trevor Johnston).

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