The Fourth Estate (2018)

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.

I want this documentary to continue ....absolutely fascinating!

This is being played up as a drama series but the 1st episode has some of the comedy aspects that The Circus did.Once is example is when one of the correspondents goes on The Daily Show introduceb as The Failing New York Times,then the next few minutes is about how the staff is shrinking,they are losing 7 floors and the reporter has paint all over his jacket from the new construction for the business in the new vacated space.The Media Elites got kicked to the curb and they don't know what to do or how to act.By the end of 8 years of Trump this will be an interesting look back at the final days of major print media.Eventually they will have to go to digital only and just be another site begging for eyeballs.It would have been interesting to show the real people who kept the Times afloat.One reporter complained that Amazon is helping the Washington Post while not mentioning the Carlos Slim ,a Mexican Billionaire who got rich by taking over the formally government owned telecommunications system,was the only reason that the NYT is still around.

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.