Main Tabs

7.12.11

Page One: Inside the New York Times

Above is a still inside the offices of the New York Times from the documentary Page One: Inside the New York Times.  The film follows several editors and journalists during a period of the fallout and bankruptcy of many municipal papers throughout the US, questioning the survival of print journalism as the founding pillars of reliable hard news.

The film took place over a period when the WikiLeaks released the Iraq war logs, when Comcast took over NBC/Universal and the release of the iPad.  There is no shortage of material to weave an interesting tale. While there are several members of staff that carry the story, the journalist David Carr provided the film with a character we can attach ourselves to, with his wit and sometimes scathing commentary.
In a segment where Carr interviews the founders of Vice Magazine/VBS.tv*  on their collaboration with CNN, one of the founders claims that they are covering Liberian cannibalism while the Times is covering surfing. To which Carr replies:

"Just a second, time out...Before you ever went there, we've had reporters there reporting on genocide after genocide and just because you put on a fucking safari helmet and looked at some poop, doesn't give you the right to insult what we do-so continue, continue."

There are many more of these colourful commentaries, I'd love to write them all down, but...

*note* vbs.tv doesn't seem to exist anymore and is redirected to the video section of the main site.