View all newsletters
Sign up for our free email newsletters

Fighting for quality news media in the digital age.

  1. Comment
September 23, 2011

Page One: An inspiring film for hacks facing more troubled times

By Dominic Ponsford1

In these days of double dip recessions, newspaper closures, lay-offs, pay freezes, plummeting public trust – I could go on – journalists need heroes.

And documentary: Page One – Inside The New York Times – provides a great one in the guise of media columnist David Carr.

The film, on limited general release in the UK from today, tells the story of a year in the life of the New York Times – starting in 2009 – at a time when the future of America’s greatest journalistic institution looked in peril.

Carr provides a wonderful antidote to the many new media  true believers who seem to delight in watching the demise of big media while at the same basing their parasitical businesses on big media’s content.

In a Q and A after a screening of the film in London last night, Carr – a former jailed drug addict and single father who knows a thing or two about overcoming adversity – was on irascible form. Talking about aggregators like US-based Newser (run by Michael Wolff) he said: “People like Michael Wolff call for the death of the whale that they are the pilot fish on. But what if the whale dies? Then you’ll have to go do some work.”

In the film he says: “The New York Times has dozens of bureaux around the world and we are going to toss that out and see what Facebook turns up – I don’t think so.”

The film has a happy ending of sorts. The New York Times metered paywall model appears to be gaining some traction – it now has 224,000 paying subscribers. But the future for it (and the rest of us) obviously remains uncertain.

Content from our partners
How PA Media is helping newspapers make the digital transition
Publishing on the open web is broken, how generative AI could help fix it
Impress: Regulation, arbitration and complaints resolution

A good UK parallel for the predicament of The New York Times is The Guardian in the UK – losing sales at a rate of 10 per cent a year and money at a rate of £38m a year, while maintaining an awesome journalistic operation. It seems to me increasingly clear that they have to radically change their business plan if they are to survive in anything like their current form.

Unlike the New York Times, The Guardian has a financial comfort blanket – albeit a rapidly depleting one – which could be worth as much as £1bn. That’s if you tot up the potential value of its holdings in Emap, Trader Media Group, its investment fund and the cash it has in the bank.

Without that, I think they would be taking a far more pragmatic approach to charging for content online.

The New York Times appears to have proved that a metered paywall model can work for a general news site (as it has done for years at the Financial Times). So surely that must now be the way forward for the likes of the London Times (with its all-or-nothing Berlin-style paywall) and The Guardian (with its fill-your-boots-for-free-online while squeezing ever more cash out of a dwindling number of print readers strategy).

But back to the film. The New York Times newsroom will probably seem pretty tame to a lot of UK journalists (there was a distinct lack of door-slamming, shouting and calls to hold the presses over the 14 months that film-makers hung out there).

But David Carr will be familiar to anyone who has worked in journalism for a long time – an inspiring example of the bloody-minded, blunt, awkward and dogged hack. One reason that newspapers (or their digital equivalent) have to survive is that I couldn’t imagine forces of nature like him doing anything else.


Topics in this article :

Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog

Select and enter your email address Weekly insight into the big strategic issues affecting the future of the news industry. Essential reading for media leaders every Thursday. Your morning brew of news about the world of news from Press Gazette and elsewhere in the media. Sent at around 10am UK time. Our weekly does of strategic insight about the future of news media aimed at US readers. A fortnightly update from the front-line of news and advertising. Aimed at marketers and those involved in the advertising industry.
  • Business owner/co-owner
  • CEO
  • COO
  • CFO
  • CTO
  • Chairperson
  • Non-Exec Director
  • Other C-Suite
  • Managing Director
  • President/Partner
  • Senior Executive/SVP or Corporate VP or equivalent
  • Director or equivalent
  • Group or Senior Manager
  • Head of Department/Function
  • Manager
  • Non-manager
  • Retired
  • Other
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
Thank you

Thanks for subscribing.

Websites in our network