FX Docuseries ‘The Weekly’ Digs Deep Into Stories From ‘The New York Times’
Preview
The journalistic storytelling of The New York Times heads in a cinematic direction with the premiere of FX’s half-hour docuseries The Weekly.
Each week, the series delivers a mini-documentary from one of the more than 1,550 New York Times journalists, covering such wide-ranging topics as immigration, education, transportation and ISIS. The series offers a visual element to the newspaper’s storytelling clout and adds a breadth of perspective that can’t be measured in column inches.
“Journalism is under assault in a way that it never has been before,” says NYT assistant managing editor Sam Dolnick, who also serves as an executive producer on The Weekly. “We think now more than ever we need to stand up for journalism, and that the best way to do that is to be transparent and show — as you say — how the sausage gets made, how we know what we know, why we do what we do, and the lengths we go to confirm the news that we’re reporting.”
Brian Rosenthal, reporter for The New York Times and The Weekly.
For metro investigative reporter Brian M. Rosenthal — whose June 9 episode, “The Myth of the Medallion” follows his eight-month investigation into a crisis within the New York City taxi industry (the image at top is from this episode) — the series allows him to delve into elements that might otherwise go unnoticed in print.
“I work so hard to bring those people to life on the pages of The New York Times, but I know that a television show can do that way better than I can,” he says. “A picture’s worth a thousand words, and a video’s worth — I don’t know — a million words, maybe.”
The global reach of The New York Times means that while some stories covered in The Weekly, like Rosenthal’s, will be New York-centric, others will take viewers around the world.
“There’s an episode one week in New York. Then there’s another one the next week in Tajikistan. Then there’s another one in Phoenix, and there’s another one in Estonia,” Rosenthal says. “It really showcases the journalism taking place all over the world.” And the day after an episode premieres on FX, it’ll be available for streaming on Hulu.
The Weekly, Sundays, 10/9c, FX
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