STRIPPED FOR PARTS:AMERICAN JOURNALISM ON THE BRINK
Saturday, April 6, 2024, 6:00 PM | Bajo El Sol Gallery
St John Film Society and Bajo El Sol present
STRIPPED FOR PARTS: AMERICAN JOURNALISM ON THE BRINK 
99-minute documentary film
Filmmaker RICK GOLDSMITH will be present for Q & A after the film
WATCH THE TRAILER
FILM 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?
“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 and editor, Editor & Publisher Magazine
RICK GOLDSMITH – 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. In 2023, Goldsmith received a Maysles Bros. Lifetime Achievement Award from the St. Louis International Film Festival and also The Rose F. and Charles L. Klotzer First Amendment Award for Free Speech in the Service of Democracy from the Gateway Journalism Review.
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. See links to reviews and interviews with Goldsmith, and more on all of his films at RickGoldsmithFilms.com.
Supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, Virgin Island Council of the Arts and the Community Foundation of the Virgin Islands. For more information, contact the St John Film Society stjviff@gmail.com or visit www.stjohnfilm.com
