Roger Moore, The Orlando Sentinel’s movie reviewer, was “touched by the grim state-of-the-newspaper subtext” in the film The Soloist (based on the work of the LA Times columnist Steve Lopez who is portrayed in the film by Robert Downey, Jr.).
“Images of pages rolling off presses, of delivery men tossing copies on doorsteps are contrasted with reporters and editors packing their belongings into boxes,” writes Moore, and “[an] industry, one the film suggests fills a vital function in civic life, sputters its death rattle.” More Moore:
Liz Cox Barrett is a writer at CJR.The only thing that could have made this film more timely is the vast increase in workload–the social networking, Twittering and blogging, frantic efforts to expand our reach and our “branding” as the business model for our business scrambles for anything that hints of “reinvention.” But yeah, these are the things that stand between us and the polished, considered writing that so many of of us got into this industry to do.
