Page One: Inside the New York Times | Documentary Review

by Chris
(USA)

The world of journalism is changing. For the better? Only time will tell. But if powerhouse institutions like the New York Times were to falter, would it cause irrevocable damage to society's ability to understand what is happening around us? That is what is at the heart of Page One: Inside The New York Times.

In today's Twitter happy news cycles where events are being judged by a tweet-per-second score card and news sites like Huffington Post aggregate news stories from other sites, who will be left to actually cover the news if sites try to simply link-in stories that fit a particular demographic? Who is going to send reporters overseas to cover wars and other in-depth stories? Huffington Post will not if it maintains its current operating model.

Many newspapers have fallen and certainly more will fall. But who will take their place? Will we have in-depth journalism in 2025? Or will we all be fed brain candy Kardashian stories that keep us shielded from bigger stories that are shaping our world. Many news organizations are being run with a profit-first mentality. We like looking at the Kardashians and it's easy to follow their soap opera lives. But what about federal dollars going to support business ventures that continue to fail? What about hospitals that leave people to die in their waiting rooms? Who will cover, or uncover, corruptness if we are focused on Kim's growing butt or Bennifer's new dog?

Profit-motivated news, were it allowed to raise our children, would serve Twizzlers and Root Beer for breakfast, ice cream and sugar sticks for lunch and candy bars for dinner - just because our children say that is what they want. Should children be allowed to create their own menu? Does a newspaper exist just to make us eat our vegetables? Is it the job of the news media to tell us what we want to hear or what we need to hear? And who determines each?

"Page One" is a well produced story that documents the current changes in how society seeks out and digests its information. It left me with the lingering question, who will make us eat our information vegetables?

Comments for Page One: Inside the New York Times | Documentary Review

Average Rating

Click here to add your own comments

Jan 02, 2015
Rating

Mediasaurus
by: Anonymous

A lot of Internet info is incorrect, innacurate, and useless. But then so is much of the information provided in newspapers.

Traditional newspapers have been mostly useless for much of their existence, and they still are. Most news stories are unreferenced, frequently incorrect and badly researched, unconfirmable, and filled with endless speculations that never come true, since no one, including reporters, knows the future.

A documentary like "Page One" shows quite clearly that reporters and media people just don't get it.

They don't understand why the public are unhappy with their product, and they don't get why people are now beginning to seek their info from other sources - ANY sources - even the Internet - which occasionally DOES contain some information and research far more accurate than that provided by newspapers in general. And rather than change - and subject their research to rigorous standards of accuracy (as in Japan) - Western media sources resist change at all levels, and newspapers remain just as innacurate and badly researched as ever.

An excellent article on this is writer Michael Crichton' wonderful essay, "Mediasaurus, The Decline of The Modern Media."

Crichton predicted precisely what is happening now; that the media will eventually die out forever because of its unwillingness to provide high- grade, accurate information to the public, and it stubborn resistance to recognize its own mistakes. As one source says:

"Even when there is no important news to report, newspapers will still give it to you with the same emphasis as if there were."

I myself will be glad to see the media disappear. As Crichton says, "When someone lies to you constantly, you eventually just stop listening."

"Mediasaurus." Look it up.

Jan 18, 2012
Rating

my rating
by: Chris J.

I give "Page One: Inside the New York Times" documentary 3.5 - 4 stars.

Click here to add your own comments

Join in and write your own page! It's easy to do. How? Simply click here to return to Documentary Reviews.