You can't get more mainstream than The New York Times, and a newly released documentary film, Page One, takes us under the proverbial editorial kimono to show us just how the front page is put together. Of course, the front page, in this era of Digg and Google News and the HuffPost, is an antediluvian concept, and online, the Times conforms more to the time-based format of its digital counterparts than to the judgments of its editorial board.
The film's Don Quixote is David Carr, media columnist and reporter for the Times (and recovering addict -- of cocaine and alcohol, not mainstream media). He's trailed by cameras at media forums, where he defends the pillars of mainstream media's high professional standards. In one such media debate, Carr holds up a printout of a Gawker site, then shows the same page with the articles that have been "repurposed" from mainstream media excised from the page. The page is full of holes, and people laugh. But do they change their reading habits as a result?
I'm afraid not. The film quotes many who have predicted the demise of the Times. The truth is the Times is dead NOW. Some people -- including these filmmakers -- have forgotten to take a pulse.
To deny this death, the film has some expert claim that Page One news has a ripple effect on the day's news throughout the nation's other media, particularly television news. I don't know many people under 40 who watch television news, so even if this seepage exists, it's still not the pervasive news source.
People are making the news. The HuffPost gets this, and that's why they have thousands of bloggers contributing to its site. All Voices, with citizen reporters all over the world, gets this. The Public Initiative Network, which sources tens of thousands of self-designated subject experts, who work hand in glove with journalists, gets this. And the millions of bloggers, tweeters, and YouTubers get this.
I don't think we should consider The New York Times mainstream media anymore. It's just a news stream, one of the many tributaries feeding into the waterfall of information.
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