May 14, 2004

I can be an obnoxious standardist…

Of course, my standards are not everyone's standards and I understand that. But I believe deeply about those things I think are important.

For instance, I think journalists have an absolute responsibility to seek the truth. That's #1. And that responsibility goes deeper that believing what you are writing is the truth. Everyone has a pool of resources of different depths. But for me, you have to work to your highest intelligence in order to be "rightous" as a journalist. Of course, it is much, much better just to be right.

This is why I have been such a hard ass about some of the recent blunders in the New York Times. They have all the resources in the world over there, they claim to be the paper of record and if they don't have the right resources to make sure they are dead on, they should go get them. Of course, this kind of devotion is rare in the area of entertainment coverage. But I believe Bill Keller is committed to that level of journalistic integrity and will get things back in order.

So why do I find myself disgusted by the aggressive interest being shown Graydon Carter's vain wish to be corrupted by Hollywood as editor-n-chief of a glossy rag that under his leadership has become little more than US Magazine with only the flattering photographs?

"Vanity Fair Editor Got $100,000 for Suggesting a Movie" screams the headline which, like a bad trailer, offers the only actual news that two excellent reporters could dig up. This "news," which has been built into something of import by L.A. Weekly's Nikki Finke, Matt Drudge, and various media blogs, including the impeccable Romenesko's Media News, is also being chased by the L.A. Times. But why?

The cheap answer is that the Times of both coasts have been under attack and an attack on Vanity Fair might distract people. But I don't really believe that. I believe that this story is one of those naval gazing insider's stories that is of little or no import outside of the incestuous cabal of high profile media journalists.

The biggest problem I have with stories like this, which are quickly and deservedly forgotten, is that every detail offered up, even if unsubstantiated, stands as a somehow legitimate accusation because it is in print in the august New York Times. With due respect to Cynthia Gorney, associate dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley… if she is the only person you can get to go on the record to say that, "there is something particularly distressing about the nice round figure of $100,000 and the fact that it directly lined Mr. Carter's pocket," there is no story. Theoretical ethics just don't cut it. A quote from Bill Keller would be a lot more significant. Unlike the professor, Keller shares a part of Carter's turf.

Entertainment journalism is not like the rest of journalism. And for the most part, that is all that is left of Vanity Fair. To find some "serious" coverage of the industry, The Times had to reduce itself to pointing to an excerpt in the magazine from Peter Biskind's hack job on Miramax/Sundance book. Bryan Orsini at LA Observed notes that the magazine ran a House of Saud/House of Bush story…. not sure whether that was just an excerpt or an original piece. But the ratio of that kind of journalism to the negotiated puff pieces… even when they have been written by "tough" reporters, is about 8 to 1.

At the core of any magazine like Vanity Fair is an eternal and ongoing negotiation with personal publicists. So, if you have a magazine that negotiates for covers, gives photo approval to talent and negotiates the terms of every major interview, does it still qualify as journalism as tradition has presented it?

Coincidentally, spending some time on media blogs this week, I came upon the L.A. Times' John Carroll's lecture at the University of Oregon in which he speaks in depth about "The Rise of Pseudo-Journalism." His context happened to be about attacking people who attacked the Times for their last minute attack on Arnold Schwarzenegger in the California gubernatorial election. (To read about the whole incident, including Jill Stewart's coverage and defense thereof, click here for LA Observed's wrap-up.)

But there were things that Carroll said about which I agree completely. For instance; "The looseness of the journalistic life, the seeming laxity of the newsroom, is an illusion. Yes, there's informality and humor, but beneath the surface lies something deadly serious. It is a code."

And later; "All across America, there are offices that resemble newsrooms, and in those offices there are people who resemble journalists, but they are not engaged in journalism. It is not journalism because it does not regard the reader - or, in the case of broadcasting, the listener, or the viewer - as a master to be served.

To the contrary, it regards its audience with a cold cynicism. In this realm of pseudo-journalism, the audience is something to be manipulated. And when the audience is misled, no one in the pseudo-newsroom ever offers a peep of protest."

Of course, Carroll is not talking about his own newsroom, but rather the newsrooms of his political and journalistic enemies. But like all of mainstream journalism these days, his newsroom is susceptible to these moments of insidious indifference. And at some moments, I am too.

Making money is rarely a direct correlative to serving your audience. Ask anyone in television and, if they aren't in denial, they will explain that TV shows are just bait for the real commodity that television networks sell… the audience… which is sold to the advertiser by the eyeball count. There are moments of self-awareness (and regulation) that keep CBS from running the Pam & Tommy Lee tape in prime time.

But the simple objectivity of TV ratings allow, ironically, a real separation of art and commerce. In the film business, it is far more complex, since every film needs to be sold like a brand new TV show and never really gets a second chance to have the audience warm up to it. In journalism, where circulation and ad sales are absolute priorities, it is frowned upon to ever admit that there is a connection between commerce and the work that we do. The best of outlets are the ones with the clearest standards. But those high-minded outlets are, in sections, slowly being dragged to the same toilet stalls where others have always lived. And unlike the overt whoredom of television, journalists suffer the dangers of keeping our whorish side locked in the closet.

In the end, you must realize that everything one publishes is a choice. It is one of the most basic principles in economics and one of the most often forgotten, whether by unawareness or malice… every opportunity has a cost. When you choose to run or report one story, there is another one that is not getting run or reported. There is nothing inherently nefarious there, but it should never, ever be forgotten. Choice is not just about "success" and "failure" as perceived by others.

Vanity Fair has decided to be a high gloss tabloid, for the most part. Even its most celebrated writer, Dominick Dunne, has become one of the most toney tabloid journalists in America, his daughter's senseless death giving an unavoidably grotesque subtext to every celebrity murder story he wallows in. It doesn't matter that Vanity Fair may once have been more or that Graydon Carter was once a young man mocking the kind of editors who blurred the Polo ads and the features on polo players.

Vanity Fair is, in essence, a high end television network. It has the prestige of its history, but it's just selling more expensive stuff to fewer, but more select people. What will keep that crowd in the tent, which is a matter of catering to their notion of the magazine more than the content itself … hence the obsession with the Oscar party, which really has nothing to do with the health of the magazine outside of perception.

My point being, this magazine is not in the business of selling journalism. If there is the occasional valid journalistic moment, so be it… let's win an award or two. But it reminds me of the old days of dirty magazines when they had to have serious content next to the bare boobs to get past the obscenity laws. (New York City relived this historical moment during the crackdown on midtown porn, as zoning laws could not outlaw porn, but did require a percentage of any business to be non-porn, leading Show World Center to sell luggage next to the quarter perv booths. Oy!)

There is a constant and exhausting need, for those of us who care in the least, to measure and balance where the line between journalism and the business of media is and where it must be for us to look in the mirror each morning. And it isn't helpful to that goal when important newspapers - and make no mistake, no matter how cranky one gets with them, they are terribly important to the ongoing health of our nation- create the impression that frivolous idiocy is something that demands the attention of people who care about journalism.

I've had the pleasure of getting to know George Christy in recent months, just a little, just shooting the breeze about movies that we know and love (or hate). But that doesn't keep me from still knowing and writing that in his capacity of a society page writer for The Hollywood Reporter, he was a gravy train showbiz slut. There are a lot of theories about why Anita Busch and David Robb used so much energy to bring down such an obvious old school guy who only did as much pretending about his status as was necessary to get away with it, though everyone already got the joke. I agree with the principles they espoused in the argument, but there were and are far more insidious and troubling issues at the trades that needed to be addressed before using nuclear weaponry to take down poor old George Christy.

I have spent the last decade of my life reporting on the film business. I have spent the last 25 years or so examining and/or participating in show business, from theater to TV to film. I choose to be here still because I find this industry fascinating and complex and completely underserved by even the outlets that expend the greatest energies in covering it. I believe that the coverage of this industry can be and should be on par with metro, national and world news. And I believe that The New York Times and The L.A. Times must be a part of that evolution.

But Graydon Carter… whose importance is defined primarily by the coverage he gets in other media since Vanity Fair itself publishes a half dozen true must-read articles a year these days… he's an important target?

I know that it's hard to eat just one Lay's. When Disney has a quarterly that is above expectations, there may be a great story in the company's decision to make accounting choices to pump up the volume as a way to relieve some of the short-term media pressure. But Wednesday's headline of "Disney Profit Increases 71%; Economy Cited." Does that sound like a headline that says, "No Matter What Disney Does, They Are Not Getting Credit" to you… or is it just me? The citation of an improving economy helping out came from Disney itself. But while the weak points of the Disney business are listed in paragraph 3, the areas of growth aren't laid out until paragraph 12. You don't have to lie - and Laura Holson didn't - to spin a story.

"In this realm of pseudo-journalism, the audience is something to be manipulated. And when the audience is misled, no one in the pseudo-newsroom ever offers a peep of protest."

A big part of the trouble here is that someone at the Times thinks it's in the interest of the readers to beat Michael Eisner into the ground. They think they are doing the right thing. I'm not suggesting that they have to headline a story "Disney Profit Increases 71%; Michael Eisner Deserves A Parade." It is the New York Times, not the New York Post. They don't need to sell the story. "Disney Profit Increases 71%" would have been great… read the story for more facts… decide for yourself. Isn't that the role of a great news organization?

So, Graydon Carter has become P.T. Barnum. According to Nikki Finke's reporting, being first on this story was a huge priority for Bill Keller. Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal's Bruce Orwall is running a story about DreamWorks Animation that is one step on the road to one of the biggest stories of the year. Two major stand-alone studios could be dissolved as independent entities in the next year. The business of creating movie content has become all but completely non-viable, albeit still critical to the ongoing survival of these massive media companies. Yet the paper of record is chasing an editor who edits a magazine that is, by its very nature, in an incestuous relationship with the movie business while the other story lays there. And the DreamWorks Animation IPO and the MGM effort to sell to Sony or someone else… they just lie there, opportunities given up so that Graydon Carter can be embarrassed at Nobu. Will The New York Times refuse to cover the Vanity Fair party next year in a fit of ethical pride? We'll see.

There was an infinitely more important media responsibility story that ran yesterday. It was in The Chicago Tribune and it wasn't even the lead story in Public Editor Don Wycliff's column.

Wycliff wrote about an earlier correction in the Trib:

"In the April 18 edition of the Q section, a Male Call column on an expensive lunch at a Chicago restaurant said the restaurant charged $15 for a bottle of San Pellegrino water and $35 for a pasta entree. Upon questioning, the freelance writer indicated the column was based on an amalgam of three restaurants and could not verify the prices."

Four days later, Wycliff wrote:

"A correction that ran in Sunday's paper left at least one inquiring mind among our readers less satisfied than wondering. In keeping with the value of transparency that our corrections policy is supposed to serve, I will try to clarify further.

Mark Falanga was the Male Call columnist whose story about an expensive lunch at a fancy restaurant in the April 18 edition of the Q section turned out to be an undocumented experience at a composite of three restaurants. A freelancer, Falanga apparently believed that, as a columnist, he could exaggerate for effect.

He and the Tribune have terminated their relationship."

I feel bad for the kid. He made a dumb mistake. But it was an arrogant mistake and the paper did the right thing. If he was a columnist writing somewhere else, it may have been the wrong thing. But The Chicago Tribune said, "We have our standards."

This kid is not Jayson Blair. He will get a job somewhere else. But he paid a price for his indiscreet abuse of the public trust, however meaningless in the big picture.

The story of The Scorpion who stings The Frog on the way across the pond, killing them both, is a lesson for frogs, not for scorpions. Why is Graydon Carter playing kiss-kiss with movie industry people? Because it is his nature. And it has been for a long time.

But who is the frog?

Is this story about the honor of Vanity Fair or a chance to take on a boldfaced name whose head would look nice on a media baron's mantle?

Maybe the real question is, who is the scorpion?

(Note: The L.A. Times Story on Graydon Carter ran a few hours after the NY Times', too late to add to this column. The story, which was reportedly initiated by Michael Cieply, ended up with Claudia Eller as the lead reporter and Josh Getlin batting clean up. It had a bit more depth and better quotes than the NYT piece. Still, no actual quid pro quo in this story either…. just a general sense that he might prefer his hobby to his day job.)

E ME: What summer films are you most unsure of yet most hopeful about?