Barbara Kopple’s ‘Hot Type: 150 Years of The Nation’ Informs But Ultimately Disappoints

The Nation is old. This year marks its 150th birthday, the occasion to which Barbara Kopple’s new documentary is timed. Hot Type: 150 Years of the Nation is a gift to the magazine as it is, a portrait that focuses more on the contemporary work of this icon of “old media” than its historical record. It’s a mixed bag, somewhere between the irksome aesthet…