Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times (2011)

Newspapers have never been part of my daily routine. It’s not that I am not interested in reading them, but I think there are just too much other things competing for my attention. Even when I’m on the train to work I’d rather watch a movie than reading one of the free newspapers. I usually get my news on TV in the evening and from various websites during the day. Judging by this documentary I’m not the only one.

The newspaper business is not what it used to be. Once they were the prime source of hearing about the world around you. They investigated and published things which resulted in big changes which everyone would be talking about. Of course they still do that, but with people not buying as many papers that impact has diminished.

The New York Times is one of the biggest and most respected newspapers in the world that started in 1851. This documentary (as the title suggests) shows what happens inside this big organisation.
It shows what’s it like for a reporter to get the information to write his articles. The decisions that are made at the newsdesk, the meeting where a decision is made which stories to run with and everything else that has to do with making a newspaper. It’s interesting stuff and as the media landscape changes it also shows the impact this has on the good old newspaper. In the U.S. various big newspapers had to stop their business and you have to wonder if the New York Times will manages to get through it. It also had to lay off lots of people.

This documentary tells the story about why we still need newspapers. As an example one of the videos which was published by Wikileaks is investigated and you see that the edited version doesn’t give an objective story. Somehow the impact of it wasn’t as big as something like the the Pentagon Papers (you should check out this documentary if you want to know more about that). Page One is an interesting look into the kitchen of one of the most respected newspapers and a look into the media landscape and how a big company deals with that.

Score: 7