Page One: Inside the New York Times
Encyclopedia
Page One: Inside the New York Times is an American documentary film
by Andrew Rossi
, which premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival
. Magnolia Pictures
and Participant Media jointly acquired the U.S. distribution rights and released the film theatrically in Summer 2011.
"With the Internet surpassing print as our main news source, and newspapers going bankrupt, ... Page One chronicles the media industry’s transformation and assesses the high stakes for democracy ... The film deftly makes a beeline for the eye of the storm or, depending on how you look at it, the inner sanctum of the media, gaining unprecedented access to the New York Times newsroom
for a year. At the media desk, a dialectical play-within-a-play transpires as writers like salty David Carr
track print journalism’s metamorphosis even as their own paper struggles to stay vital and solvent, publishing material from WikiLeaks
and encouraging writers to connect more directly with their audience. Meanwhile, rigorous journalism—including vibrant cross-cubicle debate and collaboration, tenacious jockeying for on-record quotes, and skillful page-one pitching—is alive and well. The resources, intellectual capital, stamina, and self-awareness mobilized when it counts attest there are no shortcuts when analyzing and reporting complex truths."
New York Times Business Desk
New York Times Masthead
Featured interviews
Others featured
and an average score of 68 at Metacritic
. It also received an average rating of B+ from indieWire
. Katey Rich of Cinema Blend
writes, "Even 30 years from now... Page One will remain a vital and fascinating portrait of the news and the people who make it." Entertainment Weekly
described the film as an "unexpected gotta-see doc," while Vanity Fair
called it "slick, fun, and surprisingly sexy." Somewhat less positively, Justin Chang of Variety
says of the film, "Rossi's coverage of daily news meetings and interviews with editorial staffers aren't as juicy as one might have hoped or expected, but for journos (who will likely rep the film's most appreciative audience), simply being a fly on these hallowed walls will offer much to savor," but Eric Kohn of Indiewire
counters, "Rossi captures the minutiae of the newsroom, from the rapid transcription of interviews to the rush of deadlines, as if observing an Olympic sport." Regarding David Carr, Tim Wu of Slate
describes him as "a sympathetic hero for what turns out to be a riveting film," and David Fear of Time Out Chicago adds, "it's his H.L. Mencken–like attitude toward old-school reporting that offers the best example for why traditional news-gathering won’t ever truly die." Sebastain Doggart of the UK's Telegraph describes Carr as the "Keith Richards of the Fourth Estate," and adds that the film is "enthralling" and "inspiring."
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
by Andrew Rossi
Andrew Rossi
Andrew Rossi is a director, producer, and cinematographer of documentary films. His first feature film, Eat This New York, aired on the Sundance Channel in 2004. He then directed Le Cirque: A Table In Heaven, a documentary about restaurateur Sirio Maccioni and his family, which premiered at the...
, which premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...
. Magnolia Pictures
Magnolia Pictures
Magnolia Pictures is an American film distributor, and is a holding of 2929 Entertainment, owned by Todd Wagner and Mark Cuban. Magnolia was formed in 2001 by Bill Banowsky and Eamonn Bowles, and specializes in both foreign and independent films....
and Participant Media jointly acquired the U.S. distribution rights and released the film theatrically in Summer 2011.
Synopsis
From the Sundance Program Description:"With the Internet surpassing print as our main news source, and newspapers going bankrupt, ... Page One chronicles the media industry’s transformation and assesses the high stakes for democracy ... The film deftly makes a beeline for the eye of the storm or, depending on how you look at it, the inner sanctum of the media, gaining unprecedented access to the New York Times newsroom
Newsroom
A newsroom is the place where journalists—reporters, editors, and producers, along with other staffers—work to gather news to be published in a newspaper or magazine or broadcast on television, cable or radio...
for a year. At the media desk, a dialectical play-within-a-play transpires as writers like salty David Carr
David Carr (journalist)
David Carr is an American journalist and author. He is a media and culture columnist for The New York Times. In his 2008 memoir, The Night of the Gun, he detailed his past experiences with cocaine addiction and includes interviews with people from his past, tackling his memoir as if he were...
track print journalism’s metamorphosis even as their own paper struggles to stay vital and solvent, publishing material from WikiLeaks
Wikileaks
WikiLeaks is an international self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more...
and encouraging writers to connect more directly with their audience. Meanwhile, rigorous journalism—including vibrant cross-cubicle debate and collaboration, tenacious jockeying for on-record quotes, and skillful page-one pitching—is alive and well. The resources, intellectual capital, stamina, and self-awareness mobilized when it counts attest there are no shortcuts when analyzing and reporting complex truths."
Stories and issues
- Publication of Afghan war logs by WikiLeaksWikileaksWikiLeaks is an international self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more...
- Release of the iPad
- Bankruptcy of the Tribune CompanyTribune CompanyThe Tribune Company is a large American multimedia corporation based in Chicago, Illinois. It is the nation's second-largest newspaper publisher, with ten daily newspapers and commuter tabloids including Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Hartford Courant, Orlando Sentinel, South Florida...
- NBC UniversalNBC UniversalNBCUniversal Media, LLC is a media and entertainment company engaged in the production and marketing of entertainment, news, and information products and services to a global customer base...
merger with ComcastComcastComcast Corporation is the largest cable operator, home Internet service provider, and fourth largest home telephone service provider in the United States, providing cable television, broadband Internet, and telephone service to both residential and commercial customers in 39 states and the... - The Jayson BlairJayson BlairJayson Blair is an American reporter formerly with The New York Times. He resigned from the newspaper in May 2003 in the wake of the discovery of plagiarism and fabrication in his stories. Since 2007 he has worked as a life coach in the field of mental health.-Background:Blair was born in...
scandal - Judith MillerJudith Miller (journalist)Judith Miller is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist, formerly of the New York Times Washington bureau. Her coverage of Iraq's alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction program both before and after the 2003 invasion generated much controversy...
- Gawker and its "Big Board"
- Pro Publica and new models for investigative reporting
- Charging for news online
- Watergate and the Pentagon PapersPentagon PapersThe Pentagon Papers, officially titled United States – Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense, is a United States Department of Defense history of the United States' political-military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967...
- Staff cuts in Network News and coverage of the White House
- The end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq
Cast
New York Times Media Desk- David CarrDavid Carr (journalist)David Carr is an American journalist and author. He is a media and culture columnist for The New York Times. In his 2008 memoir, The Night of the Gun, he detailed his past experiences with cocaine addiction and includes interviews with people from his past, tackling his memoir as if he were...
: Media columnist - Bruce Headlam: Media editor
- Richard Perez-Pena: Media reporter
- Tim ArangoTim ArangoTim Arango is an American journalist and current Baghdad bureau chief of The New York Times. He has previously reported for the Times about media and business, and was featured in the film Page One: Inside the New York Times....
: Former media reporter, Baghdad bureau chief - Brian StelterBrian StelterBrian Stelter is a media reporter for the New York Times and the former editor of the news-related blog TVNewser.com.-Biography:...
: Media reporter
New York Times Business Desk
- Andrew Ross SorkinAndrew Ross SorkinAndrew Ross Sorkin is a Gerald Loeb Award-winning American journalist, author and television personality. He is a financial columnist for The New York Times and a co-anchor of CNBC's Squawk Box. He is also the founder and editor of DealBook, a financial news service published by The New York Times...
: Financial columnist - Larry Ingrassia: Business editor
New York Times Masthead
- Bill KellerBill KellerBill Keller is a writer for the The New York Times, of which Keller was the executive editor from July 2003 until September 2011. On June 2, 2011, Keller announced that he would step down from the position to become a full-time writer...
: Executive editor - Jill AbramsonJill AbramsonJill Ellen Abramson is the executive editor of The New York Times. Assuming the position in September 2011, she became the first woman in this role in the paper's 160-year history.-Early life and education:...
: Managing editor - Dean BaquetDean BaquetDean P. Baquet is an American journalist, who on June 2, 2011 was named to become managing editor for news operations of The New York Times effective September 6....
: Assistant managing editor/Washington bureau chief
Featured interviews
- Sarah EllisonSarah EllisonSarah Ellison is an American writer and journalist and the author of War at the Wall Street Journal: Inside the Struggle To Control an American Business Empire . She previously spent ten years as a reporter at the Wall Street Journal in Paris, London, and New York...
- Clay ShirkyClay ShirkyClay Shirky is an American writer, consultant and teacher on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies. He has a joint appointment at New York University as a Distinguished Writer in Residence at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and Assistant Arts Professor in the New...
- Carl BernsteinCarl BernsteinCarl Bernstein is an American investigative journalist who, at The Washington Post, teamed up with Bob Woodward; the two did the majority of the most important news reporting on the Watergate scandal. These scandals led to numerous government investigations, the indictment of a vast number of...
- David RemnickDavid RemnickDavid Remnick is an American journalist, writer, and magazine editor. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for his book Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire. Remnick has been editor of The New Yorker magazine since 1998. He was named "Editor of the Year" by Advertising Age in 2000...
- Nick DentonNick DentonNick Denton, born August 24, 1966, is a British journalist and internet entrepreneur, the founder and proprietor of the blog collective Gawker Media, and the managing editor of the New York-based Gawker.com...
- Jeff JarvisJeff JarvisJeff Jarvis is an American journalist. Previously he was a television critic for TV Guide and People magazine, creator of Entertainment Weekly, Sunday editor and associate publisher of the New York Daily News, and a columnist on the San Francisco Examiner.-Career:Until recently Jarvis was...
- Gay TaleseGay TaleseGay Talese is an American author. He wrote for The New York Times in the early 1960s and helped to define literary journalism...
- Alex JonesAlex Jones (journalist)Alex S. Jones is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has been director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government since July 1, 2000. Jones is also a lecturer at the school, occupying the Laurence M...
- Katrina vanden HeuvelKatrina vanden HeuvelKatrina vanden Heuvel is the editor, publisher, and part-owner of the magazine The Nation. She has been the magazine's editor since 1995. She is a frequent guest on numerous television programs...
- Jimmy WalesJimmy WalesJimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales is an American Internet entrepreneur best known as a co-founder and promoter of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedia and the Wikia company....
- Nicholas LemannNicholas LemannNicholas Berthelot Lemann is dean and Henry R. Luce professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City.Lemann is from New Orleans and he graduated from Harvard University in 1976, but has never attended a school of journalism. He is a journalist, editor, and author...
- Seth MnookinSeth MnookinSeth Mnookin is an American writer and journalist.As of 2006, he is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair ; before that, he was a senior writer for Newsweek. He wrote the 2004 book Hard News : The Scandals at The New York Times and Their Meaning for American Media...
- Michael Hirschorn
- James McQuivey
Others featured
- Julian AssangeJulian AssangeJulian Paul Assange is an Australian publisher, journalist, writer, computer programmer and Internet activist. He is the editor in chief of WikiLeaks, a whistleblower website and conduit for worldwide news leaks with the stated purpose of creating open governments.WikiLeaks has published material...
(In phone interview with Brian Stelter) - Brian LamBrian LamBrian Lam is a writer and the former Editorial Director at Gizmodo, a blog focusing on technology. Gizmodo is owned by Gawker Media, where Lam first worked as a writer in 2006. Lam's apartment in San Francisco also acts as Gizmodo's headquarters in the city...
- Markos Moulitsas
- Susan ChiraSusan ChiraSusan Deborah Chira is an American journalist. She has been foreign editor of The New York Times since 2004.She was raised in Rye, NY and attended Phillips Andover Academy, in Andover, MA, where she graduated in 1976. She received her BA at Harvard University in 1980, graduating summa cum laude...
: Foreign editor - Noam Cohen: Special columnist
Critical reception
The film received generally favorable reviews, with an approval rating of 79% at Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
and an average score of 68 at Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
. It also received an average rating of B+ from indieWire
IndieWire
indieWIRE is a daily news site for the independent film community. It covers indie, documentary and foreign language films, as well industry news, film festival reports, filmmaker interviews and movie reviews...
. Katey Rich of Cinema Blend
Cinema Blend
Cinema Blend is a website founded and run by Josh Tyler dedicated to news and reviews of upcoming and currently playing films, movie projects, Television Shows, and a newly founded Music section which covers album reviews, band interviews and daily news from the industry. It combines gossip from...
writes, "Even 30 years from now... Page One will remain a vital and fascinating portrait of the news and the people who make it." Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
described the film as an "unexpected gotta-see doc," while Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (magazine)
Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...
called it "slick, fun, and surprisingly sexy." Somewhat less positively, Justin Chang of Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
says of the film, "Rossi's coverage of daily news meetings and interviews with editorial staffers aren't as juicy as one might have hoped or expected, but for journos (who will likely rep the film's most appreciative audience), simply being a fly on these hallowed walls will offer much to savor," but Eric Kohn of Indiewire
IndieWire
indieWIRE is a daily news site for the independent film community. It covers indie, documentary and foreign language films, as well industry news, film festival reports, filmmaker interviews and movie reviews...
counters, "Rossi captures the minutiae of the newsroom, from the rapid transcription of interviews to the rush of deadlines, as if observing an Olympic sport." Regarding David Carr, Tim Wu of Slate
Slate (magazine)
Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...
describes him as "a sympathetic hero for what turns out to be a riveting film," and David Fear of Time Out Chicago adds, "it's his H.L. Mencken–like attitude toward old-school reporting that offers the best example for why traditional news-gathering won’t ever truly die." Sebastain Doggart of the UK's Telegraph describes Carr as the "Keith Richards of the Fourth Estate," and adds that the film is "enthralling" and "inspiring."
External links
- Page One: Inside the New York Times at Sundance Film FestivalSundance Film FestivalThe Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...
- Q&A interview with Andrew Rossi on Page One, June 15, 2011