State of play

Go see State Of Play. It’s a good, edge-of-seat newspaper thriller. Go see it before the whole notion of investigative newspaper reporters becomes mere nostalgia.

They actually do make good points about the state of newspapers. If you think all those great newspaper reporters are going to be replaced by a bunch of bloggers working from their basement, well, you deserve a world without newspapers.

You won’t miss trained, informed, hard-working reporters until they’re gone. And what will be left with? Opinion by people who don’t do research. We have no clue to their accuracy.

It’s a good movie. Anyone in the news business will identify with and recognize the newsroom characters. Russell Crowe is a convincing rumpled, crumpled, hard-drinking news guy.

One mistake, though. The young reporter says readers should read the story with “newsprint” on their hands. I think she (or the scriptwriter) means printer’s ink. Newsprint is the paper.

Still worth the price of admission.