Times Documentary Exposes Newspaper in Transition

Anyone who needs to know how newspapers work and how the news business is changing should make plans to see “Page One: Inside the New York Times.” Director Andrew Rossi spent a year inside the NYT newsroom to make the documentary, which debuted in New York last Friday and will be released nationally July 1.

The Times represents the epicenter of events and trends shaking the news world, ranging from the search for a new business model – known as a paywall, getting ahead of the social media curve and the use of controversial news sources such as WikiLeaks. The film starts in 2010 with the WikiLeaks hot potato.

To delve deeper in the issues, Google the name of Bill Keller, who just announced his retirement as The Times executive editor.

“Page One” zeroes in on two contrasting figures on the staff, writes columnist Tommy Christopher of the website Mediaite: “The film focuses on The Times’ Media Desk, particularly on David Carr and Brian Stelter. They are fitting proxies for the audience, as they’re each outsiders, of a sort.”

“Carr is the nucleus around which the film gathers, and his musings form much of the narration. While a 25-year veteran, much of Carr’s career has been with alternative publications, and his backstory reads more like a pulp novel than the resume of a media reporter for the world’s most prestigious newspaper. His emergence from drug addiction and crime give him a hard, weathered edge,” says Christopher.

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Keeping an Eye on the Prys: Remembering Tom Pry (1940-2011)

Before there was the Pamplin Media Group – the network of suburban newspapers surrounding Portland and outflanking The Oregonian, there was Pry Publishing and its chain of inner-city newsweeklies. Slowly, word is leaking out of Arkansas about the passing of the co-founder of Portland’s smallest publishing empire – Tom Pry.

It’s no surprise if you’ve not heard of, or have forgotten, Pry Publishing, which Tom and Marcia Pry (1942-2001) operated in Portland for about 20 years. So far, only two small Portland papers have produced an obit for Tom.

The Prys owned at least seven Portland-area weeklies at a time when small community papers were an endangered species. The remnants of Pry Publishing now are owned by a variety of different newspaper ventures.

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Naming Names: Tough Newsroom Decisions

Bad news happens and when it does sometimes editors face no win decisions – someone will be upset either way.

I recall an incident while I was a reporter for The Daily Astorian in the late 1970s. A woman traveling between her home on the coast and a cancer-care treatment center in Portland was killed when her car went off U.S. Highway 26. The Oregon State Police reported the event as a suicide.

As a routine, reporters check police logs daily and report news about fatal accidents. When the newspaper called the family for a response to the OSP report, a family member strongly disagreed and urged the paper not to report the investigator’s conclusion about the cause of death. After much internal debate, the story was published quoting OSP about the victim’s name and apparent suicide. The family raised a huge fuss.

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Shootings: Will Media World Tilt on its Axis?

For unexplained reasons, every once in a while the position of magnetic north (or true north) shifts. Pilots landing at some airport runways that are aligned with the recent concept of “north” may no longer use zero (0) degrees on the compass to line up the approach.

And every now and then a dramatic event occurs that prompts the media to adapt to new approaches in news coverage. Is the tragedy of the January 8 shootings in Tucson and its aftermath a game changer?

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Blogging Through Open Meetings Swamp

Keep an eye on the City of Lake Oswego, where a spirited debate is underway – with statewide implications – on whether a blogger is a journalist, and whether a blogger from non-traditional media may attend a closed meeting.

Under Oregon’s open meetings law, the elected leaders of local governments may hold closed “executive sessions,” where certain sensitive issues may be discussed but no formal final decision made. These issues include labor negotiations and legal strategies, real estate transactions and personnel discussions, among other issues.

Caption: Must news bloggers apply for local government press credentials, such as a press pass, so they may attended closed-door executive sessions at city hall or the county courthouse? Some Oregon communities are mulling that option.

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1959-1965: Portland’s Newspaper Strike

This is neither a Tip nor Trend, but an observance of a mega-moment in our local media history. Imagine this: Portland daily newspaper circulation drops. Reportorial staff shrinks. A new form of reporting emerges. And, old technologies are shoved out of the way.

Were these hot button issues on management’s desk at The Oregonian last week? Probably. But how about 50 years ago?

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