I did not expect much, when we started watching this movie. But I was absolutely blown away. I know that part of it is the fact that I am absurdly in love with documentaries, but I was also moved by the whole industry of the New York Times. How that one newspaper has such a high reputation and such a history of being the leading newspaper- a newspaper that literally shaped the world.
If you haven't seen it I will give you the rundown: It follows the jobs of a few people in the New York Times and shows how the newspaper is struggling under the new media landscape of online news. It shows how the news is picked and published but especially focuses on how the newspaper is struggling in a dying industry.
What really moved me was the passion that the people have. They all work so hard to be the best, and despite the odds they keep going. And they are all really passionate about journalism. Which I find really inspiring. I want that. I want to have such a passion for my work, I want a purpose like they have.
The Times is a paper newspaper. And I am definitely a big supporter of paper newspapers. I know I am young, and of the new generation and supposed to be Internet and Apple obsessed, but I still have not gotten the hang of online news. I like it old-fashioned. I like the big pages and the fact that the news only comes around once a day. Internet media makes me uncomfortable. Because I feel like online media has so many competitors that they only write what we WANT to know, instead of what we NEED to know. It seems too much like a factory, pumping out stories every minute, whilst I can see the passion in the journalists at The Times.
Which brings me to my conclusion:
We are living in the age of LOTS of SHIT information.
Instead of Encyclopedias and books that have taken years to investigate and gather information, we have Wikipedia. Lots of information, yes, but unreliable at best. And it is hard to know what is true, because every other website also just copies off the great Wiki.
And then for news we now have hundreds of news websites, millions of blogs and billions of Twitter feeds and status updates on Facebook giving us the news. Not exactly great quality journalism there.
And instead of great films and documentaries, we now have millions of the strangest and worst videos on YouTube.
I know there are good things too, but why must there be so much bad things? We don't need that much. I sometimes long for the days when it was simple; when journalism was still one or two newspapers on a street corner and everything moved a little slower.
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