The Paper - Plot

Plot

The film takes place during a 24-hour period. Henry Hackett (Michael Keaton) is the metro editor of the New York Sun, a fictional New York City tabloid. He is a workaholic who loves his job, but the long hours and low pay are leading to discontent. He is at risk of experiencing the same fate as his publisher, Bernie White (Robert Duvall), who put his work first at the expense of his family.

The paper's owner, Graham Keighley (Jason Robards), faces dire financial straits, so he has Alicia Clark (Glenn Close), the managing editor and Henry's nemesis, impose unpopular cutbacks. Henry's wife Martha (Marisa Tomei), a fellow Sun reporter on leave and about to give birth, is fed up because Henry seems to have less and less time for her, and she really dislikes Alicia Clark. She urges him to seriously consider an offer to leave the Sun and become an assistant managing editor at the New York Sentinel, a fictional newspaper based on The New York Times, which would mean more money, shorter hours, more respectability... but might also be a bit boring for his tastes.

In addition to Henry's life, minor subplots involve Alicia, Bernie and Sun columnist Michael McDougal (Randy Quaid). McDougal is threatened by an angry and drunk city official named Sandusky (Jason Alexander) that McDougal's column had been tormenting for the past several weeks. Their drunken confrontation in a bar leads to gunfire, which gets Alicia shot in the leg through the wall. Alicia is revealed to be having an affair with fellow Sun reporter Carl (Bruce Altman), to which she decides she either needs to quit the paper altogether in order to end it, or have a raise in her salary in order to keep it going (she claims that getting hotel rooms to be with Carl is costing too much money, and her husband is at risk of finding out). Bernie reveals to Henry early on that he has recently been diagnosed with prostate cancer, which causes him to spend part of the film tracking down his estranged daughter Deanne White (Jill Hennessey), in an attempt to reconcile with her before his time is up.

Meanwhile, a hot story is circulating the city, involving the murder of two businessman in Brooklyn and two African American teenagers arrested for the crime, which both Henry and McDougal believe to be false charges (due to overhearing NYPD discuss the arrest on the Sun office's police scanner). Because of this story, Henry is wrought with tough decisions, deadlines and personal crises (including his interpersonal issues with Alicia). He becomes obsessed with getting to the bottom of the case, and spends the day getting the entire Sun staff to investigate along with him. He goes so far as to blow his job offer at the Sentinel after he steals information about the case from the editor's desk notes and reports it during a Sun staff meeting. Martha does some investigating for him and discovers (through her friend in the Justice Department) that the businessmen murdered were bankers who stole a large sum of money from their largest investor: a trucking company that happens to have ties to the Mafia. With all this new evidence, Henry begins to believe that it was all a setup and the Brooklyn boys were likely just caught in the midst of it somehow. He is so determined to get the correct story that he leaves a dinner with Martha and his parents that evening to go to the police station with McDougal (as they need police confirmation that the boys were not responsible for the murder before printing the story).

They corner McDougal's police contact, an officer named Richie, in the station bathroom and through repeated interrogation (and the promise of his anonymity in the story) get him to admit that the kids are indeed innocent and just happened to be walking by the scene of the crime when they were caught, and the reason for their arrest was largely due to city officials' insistence that the media portray the NYPD as being on top of such high-profile crimes immediately in order to keep NYC tourism from dropping. Henry and McDougal race back to the Sun office, excited about their exclusive for the paper.

Upon returning to the Sun, they discover that Alicia had okay-ed the paper's original front-page headline and story stating that the teens were guilty, despite Henry and McDougal having just returned with the evidence proving otherwise. Regardless of Henry's proof, Alicia is too stubborn to let him take over the front page news. This results in a physical fight between her and Henry, after he tries to stop the pressing machine, already printing the papers with the wrong information.

Later, Martha is rushed to the hospital for an emergency C-section due to fetal hemorrhaging, and Alicia (before getting accidentally shot by Sandusky in the bar), having a change of heart, calls the Sun and has them change her original headline to Henry's story. Immediately following her call, the scene cuts to the press room workers stopping the run of papers and the Sun staff replacing the headline and story to Henry and McDougal's, proving the innocence of the boys. The new papers with the correct story and headline are printed just in time for the following morning circulation. The movie ends with Martha giving birth to a healthy baby boy, and the morning news radio report states that because of the Sun's exclusive story, the Brooklyn teens were released from jail with no charges pressed, closing out a wild 24 hours.