Newspaper Story, 2nd Edition

Year Published: 1973

Creator: Encyclopaedia Britannica inc.

Format: 16mm

Color: Color

Sound: sound

Description: This film documents the activities of newspaper staff members during a 24-hour period, showing how news is gathered and how it is written, edited, and printed. About the film,producer Tom Smith writes "The assignment was to make a film to show students how a newspaper is made. I chose to shoot a day in the life of the Los Angeles Times. It took a lot of preparation and on the day we chose to shoot, I had, three camera crews working at the same time. I was running from place to place. In truth, we didn’t get it all done in one day. I think two episodes were shot the following day and one on the third day. Still, it gives a good portrait of a major city newspaper in a time when people still used typewriters and film cameras, a time when people still read newspapers. It is probably the last film made in the pre-digital era. The film was shot Cinéma vérité style, following the action to document real events. One of my camera operators was Joan Churchill, one of the best camera operators in this style of shooting."