A scene from the 2011 documentary "Page One" As a journalist currently working in the paper industry the 2011 documentary "Page One" holds a level of allure that I think would be lacking in the general public. It would be hard for me to expect a person who has not studied media or who has not worked in a media source to be fully committed to a 2 hour movie about something as far off an monolithic as the New York Times, but I think that this is a movie everyone should see and could love. Let me start by saying that I am a massive fan of documentaries. I watch them constantly. Good ones, bad ones and ones that I don't really think made sense. In my opinion the best ones are the ones that ask a simple question about something we already think we know about. By following that question the viewer learns how little they know about the topic and is thus enlightened. "Page One" does this task perfectly. It simply asks: what is a year like in the media department at the New York Times in 2011? A simple enough question to answer, but the film becomes complex and powerful due to the richness of its "characters"- anyone walking out not a fan of David Carr is just wrong- and because they started filming just as the market and the news industry began to shift, meaning they were now shooting an institution under great stress to change and grow or die like the papers in Denver or Seattle.
With "Page One" we are privy to interview sessions with sources, the battles leading up to deadline and the daily grind of gathering and reporting news. We learn about the value of stories and why they are placed in the paper. We are exposed to other departments and learn how each works together but against each other for space and sources. The general public is not likely to know how any of this happens or why. They simply know that there is a paper on their step and it tells them what is going on in the world. This documentary shows how that happens in a simple and elegant style with enough background and pace to make it manageable and accessible. The film could have easily been bogged down in a massive overarching narrative of the news industry and its sudden decline, but it is so focused the scale of the project, and the impact, seem small. The decision to focus on the media desk, which covers issues like media access and news delivery trends to things like Wikileaks, was also interesting and extremely effective. It allowed the director of the film Andrew Rossi ("Waiting for Superman") -to let the "characters" talk about the changing news medium and how they felt about it, rather than relaying on a narrator. In short, it made the film self-reflexive with little effort or impact on the final product. In all it is a beautiful, well paced film that should be an interesting watch for anyone, especially if they don't make the news for living and I wouldn't be surprised to see it during award season. Editor's note: At some point, "Page One" was streaming on Netflix. If it is still is, you know what to do.