Page essentially opens and closes with the Times running major WikiLeaks pieces. At first, they are scrambling to figure out who the subversive group is that recently posted a heavily edited youtube video purporting to show the American military killing journalists during a fire fight. The fact that the raw unedited footage largely contradicted the Leakers characterization is treated as merely an interesting sidebar in the “A-one” editorial meeting. That should all be tucked into one of the stories executive editor Bill Keller tells the staff. Of course, this would seem to undercut the entire story, but clearly the Times had already bought into the Leakers’ wider narrative.
David Carr ought to have some choice words to say about this. The f-bomb tossing Times media columnist clearly has a hair-trigger b.s. detector. Unlikely enough, the former junkie (as he will readily admit to just about anybody) emerges as the primary POV figure as we watch him covering issues on the margins of Page’s central questions: will new media kill off old media and we should we mourn its passing?
Well, that depends. Aside from the acerbic Carr, the Times staffers make it hard to care. Not to flay a dead horse, but the audience never witnesses any fact-checking and one uncorroborated source appears to be more than sufficient for the paper’s standards of reporting. Yet, the ease with which Keller and company slide into an alliance with the ideologically charged Leakers largely defines Rossi’s year at the financially troubled paper. As the Times starts publishing only slightly redacted Wiki document dumps, claiming they are just another source, Carr finally starts musing over the ethics of it all.
If media conferences and symposia are your idea of movie magic, than Page is the film you have been waiting for. Several arms also come perilously close to snapping as a result of strenuous back-patting. Structurally though, Page lacks any distinctive arc. It starts with the Times hemorrhaging readers and advertisers while its stock price languishes in the basement and that is pretty much where it ends as well. Even their collaboration with WikiLeaks lacks dramatic interest, since apparently nobody at the paper saw reason to object. Frankly, it is only during a round of layoffs that Page even suggests a whiff of conflict.
