PAGE ONE: INSIDE THE NEW YORK TIMES

I just attended the Atlanta premiere of the movie PAGE ONE: INSIDE THE NEW YORK TIMES where the opening scene shows newspapers rolling off the presses. 

Earlier today, having lunch with a young writer I watched her eyes widen as I told her about working for a newspaper in the 1980’s where I loved watching the presses roll. In those days ‘cut & paste’ meant actually cutting sections such as paragraphs and literally pasting them in place on the page which was then processed for printing. An IBM selectric typewriter was on my desk and once a week I walked across the newsroom to the computer room to do the one function that I was allowed to do on a computer. I had a sheet with detailed, handwritten instructions as to exactly what to key in. If I had any problems or made an error one of the computer guys would come over and fix the problem. We non-computer people were to touch the computers as little as possible. My how things have changed!

This documentary by Andrew Rossi shows the inner workings of the New York Times. It takes us into editorial meetings and follows journalists such as Brian Stelter, Tim Arango and David Carr as they conduct interviews, discuss their stories and talk about changes in the newspaper business. While many newspapers have silenced their presses, the New York Times, long considered the nation’s newspaper of record struggles to remain relevant in what is referred to as a turbulent time for traditional media.

In 1971 The “Pentagon papers” were delivered by hand and the story took weeks to prepare before it became breaking news on the front page of the New York Times. An exclusive, of course. Now with YouTube and WikiLeaks nothing is exclusive and stories that take weeks or even days to prepare are not headline news.

One major problem is defined as the “collapse of advertising revenue.” Where we once relied on the classified section, people now turn to Craigslist. Rather than look for work in the jobs listings we go to Monster.com. Companies save their advertising budgets by developing their own websites and social media campaigns. When budgets are cut, jobs are cut. How can traditional media keep up? Or can it?

Brian Stelter who blogged about the TV and news industry was hired by the New York Times to write about television and the web. David Carr, a traditional journalist who writes about media reluctantly embraced Twitter saying its value, rather than communicating short messages, is in “listening to a collective audience.”

How will newspapers evolve? What will the media be like in the future? No one can say for sure.

What I can say for sure is that if you are a journalist, if you are a writer, if you are a reader, if you have any interest in reporting or receiving news you must see this film!

PAGE ONE: INSIDE THE NEW YORK TIMES opens on July 1^st at the Regal Tara.