‘Fourth Estate’ needs context
People ask me, a former newspaper editor, what I think of “The Fourth Estate,” the documentary on the Showtime cable channel about the relentless way The New York Times covered President Donald Trump’s first 16 months in office.
My response is what I sometimes told reporters with whom I worked: Good stuff here, but a string is needed to connect the pearls.
The factual epic is filled with dramatic scenes of journalists struggling to gather, write and edit the news while trying to live a normal life.
Missing is a narrative that provides context for what we are seeing.
Aheadline on showtime.com gives us a hint: “Watch the war for truth from the front lines.”
The text below the headline says: “This documentary about The New York Times in the Trump era illuminates critical issues facing journalism today. A chief task for The Times, long considered ‘the newspaper of record,’ is to find the best way to accurately and honestly cover this unconventional president...” Anarrator could have expanded on that.
The first of the documentary’s four episodes was shown Sunday, May 27. The three other episodes were scheduled for June 3, June 10 and June 17. To see all four episodes, go to showtime.com.
The term “fourth estate” comes from Europe, where the nobility, the clergy and the common people were a country’s three estates or constituencies. In the late 1700’s, the press in Great Britain was dubbed “the fourth estate.”
But the documentary is not about the press. It’s about one newspaper’s pursuit of the truth.
Directed by Liz Garbus, an award-winning documentary maker, “The Fourth Estate” may remind you of “All the President’s Men.” That 1976 movie was based on reality. “The Fourth Estate” is reality.
That’s really Washington bureau chief Elisabeth Bumiller muttering about the New York editors who changed the lead (beginning) of a story about Trump’s State of the Union address.
That’s really White House correspondent Maggie Haberman crouching over a telephone in the Washington bureau, telling her son in New York she can’t come home yet.
Trump supporters may complain that “The Fourth Estate” is not fair and balanced. Yes, the documentary tells the story from The Times’ point of view. But it is fair. For example, we see Trump denounce the press at a rally of the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Reporter Jeremy Peters interviews an attendee who names ABC, NBC, CNN, The Washington Post and The New York Times as “enemies.”
Executive editor Dean Baquet sometimes converses with the staff or talks directly to the camera.
“We have a left that doesn’t want to hear what the other side has to say, and we have a right that feels the same way,” Baquet says the day Trump is inaugurated.
“The Fourth Estate” is good. It would have been better with more commentary by Baquet to connect the pearls.