On March 26th, filmmaker Rick Goldsmith will hold a screening at Hunter College of his new award-winning documentary, Stripped for Parts: American Journalism on the Brink.
The film chronicles a troubling trend: In recent years, local newspapers across the United States have been bought by hedge funds. Reporters have been laid off and many of those newspapers have been forced to close. After reading an article in 2018 highlighting how staffers at the Denver Post rallied against the hedge fund that bought the newspaper, and recognizing it as a national trend, Goldsmith decided to make the film.
In Stripped for Parts, Goldsmith focuses on the Alden Global Capital hedge fund and follows the journalists who are fighting back.
For many of these journalists, the hedge fund’s focus on profit above all is destroying local journalism and endangering democracy. Goldsmith highlights the journalists who have begun investigations and movements against these “vulture capitalists” with the hope of saving and rebuilding local journalism.
This is not the first time Goldsmith has addressed journalism in his work. His 1996 documentary Tell the Truth and Run: George Seldes and the American Press he highlights a veteran investigative journalist, and in 2010, Goldsmith co-directed the acclaimed documentary The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers.
Join Hunter’s journalism department and Rick Goldsmith for Stripped for Parts on Tuesday, March 26 at 2:00 p.m. in the Lang Auditorium. A Q&A with the director will follow the screening.
