The Fourth Estate

I absolutely loved this. I've read the articles and seeing how they run down stories is fascinating. It shows how tough it is for them in this age when the press is under attack, and the decisions they have to make. I'd highly recommend it.

A series of segments about NYT reporters covering Donald Trump's presidency. If you've ever wondered what it's like inside the NYT echo chamber, this may interest you. For everyone else, it's basically a ripoff of "The Circus" except instead of last week, the content is over a year old and instead of personable hosts there are a bunch of pretentious NYT reporters.

I get it, Trump is awful, but I just suffered through two years of the MSM obsessing about Russia and whinging about mean tweets. Why would I want to watch a documentary series review the same inane partisan hackery in detail?

We folllow the staff of NYT during their coverage iof Trumps' first year in office.

My five points are for the directing and editing which are near brilliant. It feels like " All the president's men" or "The Post" but then for real. You can easily see Hoffman or Hanks as one of the NYT reporters here . They all are those cleancut almost sanctimoniously noble and driven journalists hunting for the bad guy, in this case ofcourse Trump (instead of Nixon).

But that's also the main problem with this documentary : it is completely one-sided as it only deals with: the viewpoint of the Democratic elite. As I sometimes glance to the NYT (the EU version) it becomes clear that the whole newspaper is completely obsessed by Trump. The bulk of the articles are directly linked to him. Besides it got the sales up again it is also due to the fact the NYT is largely owned by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim who obviously is no friend of Trump. So much for objectivity then. But it is really well made.

A look at the beginning of the 2nd Civil War in America! Factual, well done and Scary!

"The Fourth Estate" (2018 release; 4 episodes; 260 min.) is a documentary about the day-to-day journalism that the New York Times does. As Episode 1 "100 Days" opens, it is January 20, 2017 and Trump is being sworn in. We get to know Dean Baquet, Executive Editor of the Times, about the rapidly changing landscape, both within the newspaper industry and within the political sphere ("We are dealing with a President who is very comfortable not telling the truth"). It's not long before one political bombshell starts falling after another...

Couple of comments: this documentary series is produced and directed by veteran film maker Liz Garbus, one of the premier documentarians of this generation ("Bobby Fisher Against the World", "There' Something Wrong With Aunt Diane", "What Happened, Miss Simone?"). Here she is granted seemingly unlimited access to the New York Times for months on end, and at all times of the day and night. The core team of political and investigative reporters becomes very familiar to us over these 4 episodes. Couple of things that are really striking: (1) the competition, in particular against the Washington Post, is killer. Watch the expression on the NTY reporters' faces when the WaPo breaks a big story (the Flynt story) in early 2017 before they do. (2) these reporters are putting in HUGE amount of hours, and need to basically be available 24/7. "Reporters today are working much harder than when i was a reporter", comments Baquet. (3) it's all about posting a story on-line. The print edition has become an afterthought. (4) did I mention it is HARD WORK? holy cow. Please note that the theme music and some of the score is courtesy of NIN's Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

Earlier this week I attended a book event here in CIncinnati featuring the New York Times' Deputy General Counsel David McGraw (discussing his new book "Truth in Our Times"). He mentioned that the NYT must do a better job explaining to the public what (and how) it works, and that this Showtime series was a deliberate effort to make the paper more accessible and transparent. I had not heard of this series until this week, and then promptly bingewatched it. What an engrossing and must-see documentary this turned out to be! Even though it's now 18 months old, it feels still 100% relevant with this crazy age that is the Trump administration. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!