The Paper is a 1994 American comedy drama film directed by Ron Howard and starring Michael Keaton, Glenn Close, Marisa Tomei, Randy Quaid and Robert Duvall.

It received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song for "Make Up Your Mind", which was written and performed by Randy Newman.

The reporters discover a police cover-up of evidence that the Black teenage suspects in custody are innocent, and rush to scoop the story in the midst of professional, private and financial chaos.

Henry Hackett is the metro editor of the tabloid newspaper The New York Sun[a] who loves his job, but has grown weary of the long hours and low pay.

Facing dire financial straits, the paper's owner has Henry’s nemesis, managing editor Alicia Clark, impose unpopular cutbacks.

Meanwhile, a source tells Martha that the businessmen were bankers who stole money from a reputed New York mobster, further convincing Henry that the Brooklyn youths were wrongly arrested.

Henry pushes to extend the deadline to get more time to nail the story, but Alicia refuses, citing the cost of overtime pay for the press workers and delivery truck drivers.

But before she can reach the press room on a pay phone, she is hit in the leg by a stray bullet fired by a drunk city official who had gone to the bar to confront McDougal over columns attacking him.

The next morning, Alicia lies in her hospital bed reading a copy of the Sun with the headline “They Didn’t Do It!” Henry stops by the nursery to see his newborn son, then goes to Martha’s room.

Screenwriter Stephen Koepp, a senior editor at Time magazine, collaborated on the screenplay with his brother David and together they initially came up with "A Day in the Life of a Paper" as their premise.

"[6] Howard met with some of the top newspapermen in New York, including former Post editor Pete Hamill and columnists Jimmy Breslin and Mike McAlary (who inspired the character played by Randy Quaid in the movie).

They told the filmmaker how some reporters bypass traffic jams by putting emergency police lights on their cars (a trick used in the movie).

"[5] In addition to being influenced by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur's famous stage play The Front Page, Howard studied newspaper movies from the 1930s and 1940s.

[10] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on a scale of A+ to F.[11] In his review for The Boston Globe, Jay Carr wrote, "It takes a certain panache to incorporate the ever-present threat of your own extinction into the giddy tradition of the newspaper comedy, but The Paper pulls it off.

[12] Peter Stack of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "In the end, The Paper offers splashy entertainment that's a lot like a daily newspaper itself – hot news cools fast.

His fast-break, neurotic style – owlish stare, motor mouth – is perfect for the role of a compulsive news junkie who lives for the rush of his job."

The film's general drift is to start these people off at fever pitch and then let them gradually unveil life's inner meaning as the tale trudges toward resolution.

"[15] Rita Kempley, in her review for The Washington Post, wrote, "Ron Howard still thinks women belong in the nursery instead of the newsroom.