Page One: Behind the NY Times

This documentary follows arguably one of the best newspapers in the world and how it – and the rest of the industry – has been affected by the rise of technology. Many people say that newspapers are dying, and there are two main reasons for this. The first is the decline in ad revenues. Many companies are turning to the internet, which allows more specific targeting of viewers, a higher level of interactivity and the ability to better track metrics (how many people saw an ad, clicked on it, shared it, etc.). The second reason is that everyone now has the ability to write and publish things, which means newspapers are no longer the authority, or the only voice. Oftentimes social media can provide up to the minute updates on news, making a daily newspaper seem slow.

They depict this shift by comparing the release of the Pentagon papers, which were a series of Vietnam war papers released in the NY times, to the modern day release of video of the U.S. military in the Middle East, which was released on Youtube by Wikileaks. They argue that Julian Assange is not unbiased, that he edited the video to show a certain point of view and that his goal is justice. When asked, Assange says he relates more to the values of activism than to journalism. Their argument is that newspapers provide unbiased reporting.

They also talk about the fact that having less money means they have to cut back on coverage in certain areas. One of these areas is covering the president. Where in the past, every newspaper had someone covering the White House, now days there are often no members of the media on the charter planes following Obama to events, which results in less accountability. They argue that someone has to actually find and make news, whereas a lot of these websites simply aggregate news. They talk about the NY Times effect, where they set the agenda for the day or week, and their stories are often replicated around the world.

The documentary then shifts to those who believe the Times is going out of business. They say that there is a disconnect between “shouldn’t fail” and “can’t fail”. Newspapers are given automatic credibility – why is that? People have lost faith in media because they have proven to be wrong and to be biased. For example, NY Times journalist Judy Miller helped to provoke the Iraq war by pushing the idea of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) even though she had no proof.

The documentary then offers another solution. They discuss the idea that journalism is a public good, maintaining the balance between the people’s need for information and the government’s need for secrecy. One such way to do this is with non profit investigative journalism, which is a model being tried by Propublica.

Lastly, the documentary looks into the immediate future of the newspaper (the documentary was made in 2011). It discusses how the newspaper recently laid off 100 people, and how they have implemented a paywall on their website where readers have to pay after reading so many free articles. It also mentions how a lot of people think the iPad will be the savior for newspapers, but others are cynical. I’m not sure whether iPads have helped or hurt the industry.

“The function of reporting and the press is the best attainable version of the truth” – Carl Bernstein. This really captures the argument for keeping newspapers. They conclude by saying that we need media as long as it is unbiased and not working for the government. We also need them to tell us stories we don’t want to hear, otherwise all the news will be kittens and famous people. I think this is a good point – there is no way for us to know what we don’t know or what is being kept from us, without people willing to investigate and share those stories.