Showing @ Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh, Tue 1 Nov – run ended

Andrew Rossi / USA / 2011 / 88 mins

The death of print journalism is seemingly one of those old vs. new debates; the battle between young online bloggers and veteran journalists, the share between newspaper ads and website banners, the nostalgic and political ancestry of the industry against the overnight, throwaway nature of the Internet. Here, director Andrew Rossi, known for his exploration into business acumen and structure, churns out one of the more timely and dynamic docs of recent times on the nature of the industry itself.

Having gained unprecedented access into one of the world’s most influential papers – a journalist warmly refers to news stories covered as creating the ‘New York Times effect’ – Rossi unveils the bustling creative marketplace at NYT. As he sits in on A1 meetings, budget conferences and follows ex-crack addict turned columnist David Carr to seminars across the country, it becomes clear that NYT is still as feisty and lively as it can be, given its place in a world with shrinking budgets and waning readerships.

Fair handed and wholesome, the film looks into the history of the newspaper and how its legacy has shaped it into the most formidable liberal news agency in the world, cloaking the naivety and inadequacy of the blogosphere. This is really what Rossi is hinting at: that for all the Internet’s championing of free media hooked up with “informed” article writing, the very nature of viral opinion sharing can be damaging, immature and unreflective. As Carr travels to social media talks and journalist conferences, he is prepared to voice his opinions at sceptics who undermine the influence that NYT still has, rallying the troops against an online melting pot which threatens skilled reportage. This isn’t to say the paper can’t flourish in modern times, it must simply adjust and reprioritise to hit a demographic which largely hermits on the web – and Rossi has that discussion, by interviewing journalists and ex-writers, bloggers and leading social media entrepreneurs, masterfully shaping a wider conversation the whole print network must have.