Fit to Print


Fit to Print is a 2017 documentary film that examines the decades-long business crisis within the U.S. newspaper industry and its impact on local investigative reporting. The film was written and directed by Adam Chadwick. It includes interviews from reporters and publishers within several major U.S. newspapers and television networks, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal.

Synopsis

Fit to Print examines the decades-long business crisis within the U.S. newspaper industry and its impact on local investigative reporting. The film includes interviews from reporters and publishers within several major U.S. newspapers and television networks, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal.
Through interviews with former executives at the leading newspaper companies, Fit to Print illustrates a change in business practices, beginning in the 1960s. Newspapers became less a public service then a business enterprise designed to please stockholders. Newspaper companies historically neglected investments in new technologies and expanded classified advertising online, despite direct proposals from major internet search engine companies and advertising entrepreneurs. They missed their opportunity to take advantage of these powerful new technologies, and as a result have cut their staffs to compensate for the monetary losses. Meanwhile, journalism evolves from print to digital, with online publications surging even as major newspapers struggle.
Fit to Print gives those laid-off staffers a voice in this film. Interviews include reporters, editors and photographers who are only a few of the over 15,000 newspaper layoffs since 2008. The film also provides interviews with newspaper publishers, including Al Neuharth of USA Today. In addition, the film follows several laid off-investigative reporters as they struggle to publicize important watchdog stories that have fallen by the wayside as their newspapers have closed. These stories are emblematic of the crisis that is currently facing the newspaper industry.

Interviews

Reporters: