Showtime To Air NY Times Docu 'The Fourth Estate'

The first day shooting inside The New York Times newsroom was President Trump's inauguration day. The final day was April 16, when the Pulitzer Prizes announced the Times had won three of the coveted awards.

In between, CBS News reports filmer Liz Garbus spent more than a year documenting one of journalism's most distinguished institutions while it grappled with, and tirelessly reported on, an unprecedented presidency. From the first moments of "The Fourth Estate" - as Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet watches Mr. Trump sworn on a screen in the newsroom - there's the dramatic air of a gauntlet being thrown down.

The first episode of "The Fourth Estate" premiered Saturday as the closing night film at the Tribeca Film Festival. It will air on Showtime beginning May 27. A bracing, real-life thriller with shades of "All the President's Men" (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross supply the propulsive soundtrack), the docu-series gives a rare view of the day-to-day toil of investigative journalists navigating an unpredictable and ceaseless story.


And in giving such a window into the machinations of The New York Times, "The Fourth Estate" surely will give fodder to both supporters and critics of the newspaper.

Mr. Trump has frequently attacked the press, but his gripes with "the failing New York Times ," as he has repeatedly called it, have been especially pronounced. He recently called White House correspondent Maggie Haberman, who shared in one of the Pulitzers, a "third-rate reporter" and claimed he doesn't speak to her. Haberman, a key figure in the documentary, is seen interviewing Mr. Trump by phone in "The Fourth Estate."