PAGE ONE: Inside the New York Times & JOUR 1111

Through the characters of David Carr, journalist and former drug addict, Tim Arango, war correspondent, Brian Stelter, journalist and former blogger and Bruce Headlam, Media Desk Editor the story of the struggles of journalism in this technological age are told in Page One: Inside the New York Times. Whilst through their own and other historical articles the changing face of the media unfolds and the reason why the students of JOUR 1111 attended today becomes clear.

It begins immediately to gel as the Mass Media images showing the time consuming path of a newspaper from print to delivery and the "Obituary Column - Death Notices of Daily Papers" tolls the collapse of Web 1.0. As sales drop, advertising revenue decreases, as specialised advertising sites are set up, and competition by way of the internet increases the New York Times witnesses the emergence of Web 2.0. 

A scene from PAGE ONE: INSIDE THE NEW YORK TIMES, a Magnolia Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

David Carr, whose commentary and one liners steals the show, reveals the journalists attitude towards the "Social Web" when discussing the hypothetical demise of the NY Times he says, "...toss that out and kick back and see what facebook turns up." There is also the feel that citizen journalists lack the expertise to do more than re-purpose news rather than find original stories and be the news gatherers. There is of course acknowledgement of the advantages of the Digital Age through Brian Stelter, the robot, with his love of twitter and Carr's conversion, the role of Wikileaks, source or publisher, and discussion of it as a two edged sword.

Why Twitter Will Endure, Carr, 2010

The NY Times is portrayed as Agenda Setting as it initiates many Hard News stories and as a pillar of Public Trust that "proved existence of the World" by its mere production. This forms the reason behind the collective denial in the industry that traditional media outlets aren't failing. This public trust and agenda setting is clearly bought into question with the NBC's media story of the withdrawal of troops from Iraq with its 'Made for TV Moment' and lack of official facts. Even the NY Times itself does not escape criticism with Judy Miller's piece on "Weapons of Mass Destruction", which lacked the elements of critical and thorough journalism.

The economics of this failure is shown however, with the NY Times revealing it had looked into alternative funding methods ranging from philanthropic to membership, the problems with the public perception of entitlement due the continuing free news sources on the internet and finally their switch to subscription. Journalists do not come out of this unscathed with layoffs and cost-cutting which leaves journalism as an insecure, vunerable occupation with constraints on the ability to provide quality investigative journalism.

As to the future, having said all of this, the last word must go to David Carr, the star, who gives hope and describes the journalist that are left as, "tenacious motherf...ers." 

David Carr in PAGE ONE: INSIDE THE NEW YORK TIMES, a Magnolia Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

Website: takepart.com/pageone