Diagonaldi Very well executed

SoTrumpBelieve Must See Movie...

Matrixiole Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Sam Boutelle Intimidating as it inspires, Page One pushes cameras into one of the highest-pressure environments around and captures a few human moments in the midst of empire-cleaving times. As he explores the prognosis for the Gray Lady, Andrew Rossi also lends light to lives led in pursuit of larger issues, and he illuminates just how frantic days are within the halls and heads of those responsible for the paper of record. Best of all, we're allowed to be entertained by journalists who otherwise appear only in text that has been scraped and stapled by an institution until its fit to print. More than the documentary's macro plunge into the fate of print media, it is these nicks and knacks of picking up Twitter and trying to break through to clarity in reporting that defines Page One as an inside scoop.

gregking4 How can old-fashioned print media survive and be competitive in the revolution of new technology and media like Twitter, Internet bloggers and Wikileaks? It seems like everyday the obituary columns of newspapers are full of reports of the death of major American newspapers, and the ability of The New York Times to survive in these difficult economic times has been a source of much speculation over the years. Advertising revenue has collapsed, and major newspapers have gone bankrupt across the country. These are some of the issues explored in this fascinating and eye-opening documentary from Andrew Rossi (who co-produced Jehane Noujaim's Al Jazeera doco Control Room). Granted unprecedented access, Rossi and his film crew spent a year embedded in the offices of the venerable New York Times, observing the day to day operations of the newsroom, the editorial meetings, the retrenchments, and following a few journalists. One of the most colourful characters we meet is David Carr, a former crack addict, who is now a respected and outspoken media columnist for the paper. Rossi compares the Wikileaks site and its exposure of secret files with the paper's own achievements in publishing the infamous Pentagon papers three decades earlier. But he also questions the future of investigative journalism in this age of quick and immediate on-line blogging that mainly passes on snippets of gossip and rumour without the basic fact checking and verification of sources of newspapers. He draws a parallel with the Watergate affair and how intrepid reporters from the Washington Post brought down a President. The film charts the changing face of journalism, but argues that there is still a place for print media in this electronic age. Page One is a fairly balanced view, as Rossi also looks at some of the recent scandals that have tarnished the Times' reputation and damaged its credibility.

John Raymond Peterson This is a well done documentary which subject is long overdue. Some well known truism should never be forgotten. Eliminate a professional, elite even, news organizations such as The Times and you are one step, the last one, to any semblance of democracy. Reporters in this documentary explain well that the web's various pseudo journalistic sites would not exist if it was not for the major newspapers such as the Times. None describe as eloquently as David Carr what the web media would become or look like if you took out all content, quotes and facts, originating from the New York Times; the result was striking.The documentary is also objective enough to site the major failings and risks of any major institution such as the Times; the articles on the case of weapons of mass destructions in Iraq by Judith Miller (Pulitzer Prize) and the series of fabricated articles by Jason Blair, to mention two important ones. The movie took the perspective of one department of the Times, to approach the subject, that of the Media Industry. So it provided us with a comprehensive view of the fate of newspapers and a glimpse of the future. I was certainly interested in getting information explaining how we are where we are with journalism today, not why, because who does not know that the web has meant the inevitable demise of newspapers as we knew them. I forgot who, in the film, said "information has never been free"; which explains how ludicrous it is to expect to get real journalism on the web for free, at least in depth reporting, because headlines are easy to make up, not so easy to include meat with that.If anything, the movie will make you reflect and you can come up with your own conclusions. Mine was simple: How can you pi** off so many people, politicians and political cults, celebrities and their hedonistic followers, religious organizations of all varieties and points of view, and not be absolutely necessary; you define a free society and country by the degree of freedom and independence its press enjoys. The Times has and is changing with the times.

jysting In his review of the documentary Page One: Inside the New York Times (Paper thin insights, Weekend Australian Review Sept 24-25) Lynden Barber ascribes "pomposity" to the Time's "olde-timey font and (page) layout." I disagree- in its bid to be more appealing and easier to read, the layout and font chosen are tastefully attention-drawing and pleasing to look at. Indeed I consider the highly characteristic New York Times nameplate a historical objet d'art. Such strongly-felt reactions to the visual elements of typography used by the New York Times suggests that the typeface form of letters selected for headlines and article text as well as page layout are designed to evoke visceral responses in profoundly subliminal ways. The impact of fonts and page layouts is not just an esoteric aside. The style used for letters, characters and text are designed to create a readable, coherent and visually satisfying whole that works without the reader being aware.Where spoken language relies on tone of voice or gesture to convey emotion, the visual form of the written word possesses mysterious connotative properties. Ultimately, a world without charismatically constructed letters, numerals and symbols leads to unengaging newspapers, whether online or in print. Joseph Y Ting