When a corporation commissions a movie about itself, you know there are going to be problems. It will be self-serving, self-conscious and a good old-fashioned puff piece. Mostly, however, movies like this are shown to boards of directors, focus groups, the employees, perhaps at an anniversary dinner or a retirement or family function of some sort.
But to use it to make money, or to polish an image, as the New York Times apparently has done with "Page One," that can be a major error
But I loved the movie. After all, I've been in newspapers for more than a half-century, I've been a Times reader ever since I learned how. I know many Times people, I've visited there (in the old building). It was like a trip to Mount Olympus. Sure the newspaper has flaws, big ones. But it was the Times.
To avoid any ethical problems, the Times hires non-employees to review books about the paper or by its writers. That's a good thing. But the Times asked Michael Kinsley of Bloomberg Views to review the movie, and Kinsley devasted it, covering almost a half-page of the newspaper without finding anything he liked. It's his opinion, and I largely agree with it.
I was saddened that the Times people who worked with director Adrew Rossi, who did the excellent cinematography and wrote the screenplay with Kate Novack, were mainly David Carr, a media columnist, and Brian Stelter, who writes about the media. No interviews with new managing editor Jill Abramson, or her predecessor, Bill Keller, no discussion of war coverage, or of any other coverage, almost nothing with the newspaper's columnists or editorial writers or everyday reporters.
Lots of pictures of the beautiful new building, designed by Renzo Piano, a variety of brief, almost-truncated discussions of Wikileaks, of traveling with the President, of Watergate and the Pentagon Papers, of Judith Miller and Jayson Blair. There's a great deal of skipping across and around various subjects without taking time for analysis or conclusions. The viewer of "Page One" will learn very little about the Times, or about life there.
As Kinsley wrote: "The Times deserves a better movie and so do you. Go see 'His Girl Friday' again."
Page One: Inside the New York Times opens today at the Plaza Frontenac
—Joe