Save the date: January 11, 2025 | San Diego screening location TBA
Screening contact info: info@artivist.media
STRIPPED FOR PARTS
American Journalism on the Brink
A Film by two-time Acedemy-Award nominee Rick Goldsmith
We are honored to have the privilage to hold a public screening of this monumental documentary that comes at a time when press freedom and print journalism are experiencing an existential crisis.
SYNOPSIS
Stripped for Parts: American Journalism on the Brink is the story of one secretive hedge fund that is plundering America’s newspapers and the journalists who are fighting back. Investigative reporter Julie Reynolds, Denver Post editorialist Chuck Plunkett and a handful of others, backed by the NewsGuild union, go toe-to-toe with the faceless Alden Global Capital in a battle to save and rebuild local journalism across America. Who will control the future of America’s news ecosystem: Wall Street billionaires concerned only with profit, or those who see journalism as an essential public service and the lifeblood of our democracy?
THE FILMMAKER
RICK GOLDSMITH has been producing and directing documentary films since 1981. His mission as a filmmaker is to tell stories that encourage social engagement and active participation in community life and the democratic process, and to stimulate young minds to question the world around them.
Stripped for Parts: American Journalism on the Brink (2023) is the third in a trilogy of films with journalism themes, following Tell the Truth and Run: George Seldes and the American Press (1996) and The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers (2009) (co-produced/co-directed with Judith Ehrlich),both nominated for Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature. Most Dangerous Man also won a Peabody Award.
Other Goldsmith films: Everyday Heroes (2001) (co-produced/co-directed with Abby Ginzberg) is a behind-the-headlines look at AmeriCorps and a provocative and instructive look at youth, race and national service. Mind/Game: The Unquiet Journey of Chamique Holdsclaw (2015), chronicles “the female Michael Jordan” from troubled family life to basketball superstardom, revealing a long-hidden battle with mental illness. Mind/Game received a coveted VOICE award from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration (SAMHSA).
In 2023, Goldsmith received a Maysles Bros. Lifetime Achievement Award from the St. Louis International Film Festival, The Rose F. and Charles L. Klotzer First Amendment Award for Free Speech in the Service of Democracy from the Gateway Journalism Review and the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) award for Documentary Film.
Born and raised in the suburbs of New York City, Goldsmith came west in 1975 and has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area ever since. Trained in architecture, music and community activism, he began working in films in 1979. He is a member of the Documentary Branch of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), the Writers’ Guild of America, West, and New Day Films, a filmmaker-run distribution coop.
Testimonials and Reviews
“Stripped for Parts does exactly what a good socially conscious documentary should do– identifies an urgent problem, explains how we got here, why it matters, and, most important, considers what we should do about it.”
— Victor Pickard, Professor of Media Policy and Political Economy, University of Pennsylvania
“This documentary demonstrates in painful clarity why independent news organizations matter and why local news matters. At the same time, it rightfully champions the courage and commitment of journalists across this country.”
— Suki Dardarian, Editor and Senior Vice President, Star Tribune
“The collapse of local news is a deep threat to democracy and the fabric of communities. But we can’t turn this around without comprehending how we got here. Stripped for Parts vividly shows the causes and consequences of the decimation of community journalism.”
— Steve Waldman, Founder and President, Rebuild Local News
“Goldsmith is an amazing storyteller, able to take the important and little-understood topic about how US newspapers are being destroyed by corporate greed and explain it in a compelling way. Everyone in a community that is vulnerable to the loss of their journalistic “voice” needs to watch Stripped for Parts.”
— Mike Blinder, Publisher of Editor & Publisher Magazine (E&P)
“Stripped for Parts is like a creepy horror movie, where the villain is a hedge fund that […] gobbles up newspaper after newspaper and proceeds to cannibalize them with gruesome efficiency. The plot twist is how those inside this particular house — reporters and editors — improbably band together to fight back.”
—David Barstow, New York Times investigative reporter and 4-time Pulitzer Prize winner
“A fire is raging inside the theater of local media and democracy, and Goldsmith’s film is the alarm bell we had better heed.”
—Thomas N. Gardner, PhD, Professor of Communication, Westfield State University
“The public finally has a documentary that clearly shows what has happened, and is still happening, to local news, while giving hope that the numerous nonprofit newsrooms starting up around the nation may restore some of what is being lost.”
—Brant Houston, Journalism Dept, College of Media, U. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign