So I just stumbled over “The Paper” on cable, a wonderful comedy/drama with Michael Keaton and Glenn Close made back in 1994. And in watching it, I was struck again by just how much the world has changed in a mere 20 years.
The climax of the film (it’s two decades old; deal with the spoilers) hinges on the fact that the newspaper has a front page headline that subsequent investigation reveals to be false. Keaton’s character stops the presses so it can replated and changed (thus exonerating two black youths falsely accused of a crime) but Close’s character, the EIC, starts the paper up again and fires Keaton’s character. Later on, though, she has a change of heart, stops the press herself and has it fixed to run the correct headline. Presumably she swallows the expense of destroying the already published newspapers so that they can get it correct.
And as I watched it, I realized that would never happen today. They would send out the incorrect newspaper so they wouldn’t incur the expense of the unused papers, but they would immediately update the website. The printed paper would seem an interesting but inaccurate sidelight while the online version would be out there with the correct story. End of problem.
Kind of kills the drama.
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