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- SHOWTIME
- May 27, 2018
- SHOWTIME
- May 27, 2018
Summary The four-part documentary series directed by Liz Garbus features the editors and reporters at The New York Times as they cover President Trump's first year.
- SHOWTIME
- May 27, 2018
- SHOWTIME
- May 27, 2018
Summary The four-part documentary series directed by Liz Garbus features the editors and reporters at The New York Times as they cover President Trump's first year.
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Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 12 Critic Reviews
74
92% Positive
11 Reviews
11 Reviews
8% Mixed
1 Review
1 Review
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 12 Critic Reviews
74
92% Positive
11 Reviews
11 Reviews
8% Mixed
1 Review
1 Review
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
The series is mostly an engrossing, behind-the-scenes look at a journalistic renaissance driven by the upheaval in Washington. But the fatigue that reporters experience from the barrage of breaking news, and the partisan rancor that makes their jobs so difficult, wears on the viewer as well. ... Yet the series does capture the excitement and crush of journalism today by throwing itself into an exhaustive news cycle.
Although it is filled with sort of pulse-quickening journalistic jujitsu one expects--the deadlines, the doggedness, the scoops, the backlash--it is also refreshingly human in scope, stopping more than once to observe the emotional toll on these journalists who are working themselves to the bone.
It all can be quite thrilling: a peek behind the scenes of how things actually go down when news breaks. Garbus also gets across how hard these reporters are working and how often. .... By the time the series wraps up, it does not feel complete. Articles from the first hour start to connect with new stories surfacing in the fourth, as reporters speculate that something big is around the corner. They don’t think the story is over yet, and indeed, it isn’t.
Regardless of its flaws, The Fourth Estate is the equivalent of mainlining pure political-news heroin, a fascinating fly-on-the-wall look at the frantic and unenviable lifestyle of those genuinely doing their best to provide honest and aggressive journalism in the face of a government intent on muzzling it.
Because The Fourth Estate is less a documentary about the Times than a document of the struggle to report on Trump, it is--though smart and gripping--a frustrating heap of unfinished business.
This is the opposite of a thesis film; it’s a lively existential you-are-there diary of the pulse of The New York Times. Maybe the other episodes will expand its scope, but I couldn’t help but wish that what we were seeing [in the opener] had more of a topical-philosophical edge--that it showed us the Times editors wrestling, for example, with the thorny issue of how to deal with Trump’s lies, and hammering out a policy about it.
The Fourth Estate, which chronicles 16 months in the life of The New York Times, is reasonably competent, but it’s also superficial and oblivious a little more often than one might like.
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 12 User Ratings
4.2
33% Positive
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
17% Mixed
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
50% Negative
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 12 User Ratings
4.2
33% Positive
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
17% Mixed
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
50% Negative
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
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