A documentary by Andrew Rossi. Rated PG.

The focus of the cool-headed documentary Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times isn’t just a year at the paper. Its real subject is the role of traditional journalism within a society, and a media environment, that is changing too quickly for anyone to predict what is coming.

Filmmaker Andrew Rossi, who previously made a couple of foodie docs, apparently had carte blanche at the Times. You’d never know there are sports, crime, or arts sections at the paper, though, and he rarely strays from the media desk, which—fortunately for him, and us—is currently manned by a crusty reporter in the old-school mould of Jimmy Breslin and Studs Terkel. This is David Carr, a raspy-voiced former crack addict and poverty-stricken single dad from Minnesota who looks like an R. Crumb character and can decimate an opponent or an interview subject with deft verbal jabs that, on occasion, also leave them laughing.

Working with writer Kate Novack, the director attempts, somewhat randomly, to cover key moments in the Grey Lady’s history, including high points (the Pentagon Papers) and the very low (serial fabulist Jayson Blair and Bush-war cheerleader Judith Miller). Archival clips of editorial meetings in the 1950s contrast with the subsequent arrival of women and minorities (and the absence of ashtrays), but the family-owned paper’s autocratic style hasn’t changed that much.

Still, the Sulzbergers are committed enough to notions of the public good to keep the Times central to any discussion of journalism’s enduring values. That, in the end, may keep it standing in a lonely, tree-free landscape. Or maybe not.

Watch the trailer for Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times.