Participant Media’s Social Action Campaign For Page One: Inside The New York Times Encourages Audiences To Consider The Source

Participant Media’s Social Action campaign for the film PAGE ONE: Inside The New York Times features a series of screening and conversation events and online actions designed to explore the relationship between traditional and new media, the future of news, the value of original reporting and various aspects of media literacy and reform. The documentary feature, from Participant, Magnolia Pictures and History Films, is currently playing in New York and Los Angeles and expands to select cities this Friday, July 1st. Liana Schwarz, Participant’s Senior Vice President of Social Action & Advocacy, said, “Just as the film chronicles the transformation of the media industry at its time of greatest turmoil, we have joined forces with such organizations as NewsTrust, ProPublica, Free Press and the News Literacy Project for a Social Action program to examine how we can best ensure that this transformation leads to a more informed and discerning audience. We designed the campaign with actions people can take to seek out and support quality journalism, oppose media consolidation and push for media reform.” The campaign was launched May 25^th with a screening and panel at the Seattle International Film Festival, followed by a screening and panel event June 21^st in Chicago; June 27^th in Detroit; and June 29^th in Atlanta and Denver. Participant’s Social Action site, http://www.takepart.com/pageone features a multi-part original video series that profiles award-winning reporters, photojournalists and voices in digital media including Pulitzer Prize winners Barbara Laker and Wendy Ruderman.In addition, the site hosts two infographics: one was created in collaborating with ProPublica that deconstructs their Pulitzer Prize winning news story “Deadly Choices at Memorial” to demonstrate the importance of original reporting in the digital age; the second is a digital version of a mini-newspaper we created with graphics and statistics about news and newsrooms. The digital team has given the film a vibrant social media presence and will soon be having a online giveaway for an illustration created especially for PAGE ONE by Mixed Media Daily, an artist drawing the front page of the LA Times, every day for 2011. In addition, PublicAffairs Books has just published the Participant Media companion book, PAGE ONE: Inside The New York Times and the Future of Journalism, edited by NPR’s David Folkenflik who has convened an impressive lineup of media savants to talk about the present and the future of news. In the coming months, Participant and FreePress will host in Boston a grassroots community town hall on local media designed to educate, mobilize and empower citizens to help define and shape the future of news in their communities. This town hall will provide the opportunity for community members, journalists, local policy makers and other stake holders to brainstorm, network and work to re-shape the framework for journalism that exists in their city. In addition, as series of screenings and conversations at schools of journalism will be part of the Social Action campaign at DVD. Filmmakers Andrew Rossi and Kate Novack were given unprecedented access to The New York Times newsroom and the inner workings of the Media Desk forPAGE ONE: Inside The New York Times. Writers like Brian Stelter, Tim Arango and the salty but brilliant David Carr track print journalism’s metamorphosis even as their own paper struggles to stay vital and solvent, while their editors and publishers grapple with up-to-the-minute issues like controversial new sources and the implications of an online pay-wall. Meanwhile, rigorous journalism is thriving—PAGE ONE gives us an up-close look at the vibrant cross-cubicle debates and collaborations, tenacious jockeying for on-record quotes, and skillful page-one pitching that brings the most venerable newspaper in America to fruition each and every day. Participant Media is an entertainment company that focuses on documentary and narrative feature films, television, publishing and digital content about the real issues that shape our lives. For each of its projects, Participant creates social action and advocacy programs to transform the impact of the media experience into individual and community action. Participant’s online Social Action Network is TakePart (http://www.takepart.com). Founded by Chairman Jeff Skoll in 2004, Jim Berk serves as CEO and Ricky Strauss as President. Participant’s films include The Kite Runner, Charlie Wilson’s War, An Inconvenient Truth, Good Night, and Good Luck. , The Visitor, Food, Inc., The Cove, The Crazies, Countdown to Zero, Waiting for “Superman,” Fair Game, PAGE ONE: Inside The New York Times, The Help, Circumstance andContagion.