I just caught up with this wonderful documentary - a year in the life of the New York Times as it deals with the news and the delicate issue of survival. Anyone who loves journalism, newspapers, cares about the digital transition great news organisations are grappling with should watch.
It also gave me a new hero - NYT Media correspondent David Carr who has a leading role in the film and has a brilliant dry blunt turn of phrase. Some outakes:
"Some stories are beyond the database. Sometimes people have to make the calls, hit the streets and walk past the conventional wisdom."
And admonishing a critic of their Africa coverage: "Before you ever went there we had reporters there reporting genocide after genocide. Just beause you put on a f***ing safai hat and lifted some poop doesn't give you the right to insult what we do."
"I can't get over the idea that Brian Stelter (a new colleague) was a robot assembled in the basement of the New York Times to come and destroy me".
"For many of us who work in the media life is a drumbeat of goodbye speeches to cheap cakes and sweet sparkling wine."
But then..."I've been a single parent on benefits. This is nothing."
And there's a great moment where, on one of those "future of news" panels, he holds up a print out of the home page of a major aggregator - and then says "what happens when you take out the content from traditional media?" and holds up another page riddled with holes....
Good man.
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