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February 28, 2006Finally getting to Part II of Friday's Hot Button…
The internet is revolutionary in some ways, but in terms of generating revenues, it's pretty much been by the book. Ad sales, subscriptions, and investment are the three ways content providers have been able to generate dollars on the web. There have been minor variations, like Salon's buy-a-year or watch-an-ad access deal. But basically, it's very much the same old model. And the internet has still gotten very little extra credit for the kind of experience it delivers to an audience, much more active than the passivity of most newspaper and magazine advertising.
The internet has also found itself in an either/or situation that newspapers and magazines do not. People are willing to pay for access to some content websites, but when they pay, the expectation of being commercial-free comes along with the deal.
Of course, in time, there could be paid websites that are also valued enough to have an audience willing to both pay for access and be sold. The trades have somewhat of that situation online already, but the reality is that the vast majority of people with web access are print subscribers, already expecting ads from the trades.
At this point, advertisers are underpaying for the web and overpaying for Traditional Media. And as long as that is the case, there is no great business model for content plays on the web. Until someone comes along and invests wisely in internet content, delivering something that is truly an improvement on the Traditional experience and owning a niche, the web will remain a mom & pop industry with the potential of muscularity. You can make a million dollars a year on the web… but that is not enough to run a news organization, for instance, the size of the LA Times.
And that's where the rage of Traditional Media begins. Because the viability of Traditional Media outlets covering their (fiscal) nuts the way they have for decades seems to be coming to an end as well. Classifieds have been knocked off by Craigslist, ironically a not-for-profit business to date. The competition for sports reporting outside of local interest has been somewhat overwhelmed by ESPN.com and a wide array of niche sites. Anyone interested in opinion pieces can find them from a million different sources, in and out of Traditional Media outlets. And of course, on the entertainment side, the Traditional Media is now having its lunch handed to it on a regular basis by any number of web-based outlets, some more serious than others, some more reliable than others.
The reality of the web is being presented as this kind of "they'll run anything… it's all just gossip with no effort to confirm" schtick. But the reality is that the entire fabric of what has been Mainstream Media and is now Traditional Media - the difference being that the mainstream is not a thick enough stream from any well to be considered the main stream anymore - is being unraveled. The presumptions of the past are under scrutiny because the door of doubt has been opened. And at least on my turf, the movie business, the mode of coverage has not been investigative, challenging, or even thoughtful in Traditional Media for quite a long while, if ever.
When the New York Times or the L.A. Times or the trades "answered" a question in a story, it used to be that the answer was then in cement. This was also true in criticism. If Variety said something about a movie, it mattered. Now, it matters who the critic is and people have an opinion about, say, Todd McCarthy, and not just about Variety as a paper of record. Carina Chocano showed up at the L.A. Times a little late -- her legitimacy as a critic, which is certainly pushed by the paper, is still unsettled because being the #2 critic at the #2 movie paper in the country is not enough to make her voice important anymore. Her voice needs to be heard and embraced on its own merits.
Richard Roeper also missed the boat, while Tony Scott has not only grown as a voice in film criticism, but has been bolstered powerfully by embracing a friendly partnership at the New York Times with Manohla Dargis and, while they are very different critics, engendering a sense of unity in the ultimate goal, the promotion and discussion of quality film.
But back on the more serious side, the situation is not unlike that of the shortening theatrical window. It wasn't long ago that if the LA Times or NY Times or one of the trades had a story, they could sit on it for a long, long time, by agreement with either the subject of the story or a studio or whatever. There remains very little true broken news in this business. We are not uncovering secrets. We are, in most cases, being told secrets, the telling of which is to someone's distinct advantage.
The trajectory of the Stacey Snider story was a product of the new reality of entertainment news. It started as a rumor. Most people in this town believe that most rumors are true and the vast majority of rumors have some basis in truth. This is true of both industry workers and industry reporters. But in the past, those rumors could be kept under control. So when both the NY and LA Times finally got interviews with Stacey Snider last Thursday (2/23), that would have been the first widespread public word on the issue.
Unfortunately, the first incarnation of the rumor ran on MCN on February 2… two weeks after the rumor first turned up, which was long enough to get confirmation (slowed by Sundance) that there was some legitimacy to the rumor. That legitimacy turned out to be the conversation between Snider and Paramount and DreamWorks. Just a few days later, MCN noted again that neither Snider nor DreamWorks nor Paramount nor Universal was denying the rumor. By February 10, Brad Grey was using Gail Berman as a human shield, as initial conversations with Stacey Snider, we now know, had already taken place. Still, as of February 21, Patrick Goldstein at the L.A. Times was still writing about Berman as the primary story and offered this passage:
"Once the bloodhounds get the scent, it's hard to keep them off the trail. In an era when the Internet ravenously consumes every flap or kafuffle, stories take on a life of their own, especially with bloggers volunteering all sorts of off-the-cuff theories and hunches, which the mainstream media - meaning newspapers like mine - pursue to determine if they contain any truth worth reporting on."
And when those "off-the-cuff theories and hunches" turn out to be not so off-the-cuff and based on more than hunches, since it is possible for internet writers to cover the asses of their sources the same way Traditional Media does? That would be newspapers like Patrick's getting scooped, just as any rival paper would scoop another.
But the standard for Traditional Media is still The On-The-Record Interview. And by the time Stacey Snider gave those interviews to Sharon Waxman and Claudia Eller on Thursday the 23rd, she was no longer telling the story, but responding to the story. Of course, neither Eller's or Waxman's stories appear to have taken that into consideration. Neither had the series of stories the week before about Ms Berman's status that featured comments from Brad Grey.
And if we were simply waiting for Traditional Media to get the story "right," we would likely still be waiting. At once, the standard is too high and far too low.
My first instinct is to smack the publishers of those stories for utter stupidity. But the truth is, with more consideration, I realize that the weakness is in the infrastructure of the system and not something that reporters at these papers seem to take into any consideration at all. And it would be hypocritical of me to argue that I believe that the LA Times and NY Times should be in the business of reporting all the industry gossip with no filter as fact or near-fact.
That said, it is a remarkable shockedshocked moment of hypocrisy from the Traditional Media to talk about industry gossip as something new or as some sort of uncontrollable plague. Even more so, it is a pathetic game for such outlets to in one paragraph attack everyone else for perpetuating the power of gossip only to quote that same gossip in the next paragraph. Patrick Goldstein took that to the extreme by taking a paragraph to write about a reader letter to Jeffrey Wells that didn't even qualify as gossip, but rather as cruel bloodletting by someone with a major chip on their shoulder by qualifying it thusly:
"The most striking example of this was a posting about Berman from Web gadfly Jeffrey Wells that quickly became the talk of the town after appearing in his Hollywood Elsewhere column last week."
Goldstein goes on to quote from the letter and Wells' foolhardy rationalization for running it… and from his bully pulpit of alleged responsibility, did everything possible to not only encourage Wells to print such tripe again, but also to get people who have never or have stopped reading the web page to start again. After all, doesn't everyone want to know what the talk of the town is?
So long as the LA Times' standard is to quote things that should not have been printed when it conveniently makes a point in a story, the Traditional Media is as guilty as the New Media.
On the flip side, we must now all understand that simply printing the notions of a powerful interview subject, allowed to float on and off the record in the course of the chat, is not all that different from Jeff Wells printing that stupid (and not even necessarily incorrect… that's not the point) anonymous e-mail. There is far more machinery involved in an interview with, for example, a Brad Grey. But the truth remains the truth and the opposite as well.
Aside from this column, only The Wall Street Journal has shown an ongoing interest in the major outstanding issue in the DreamWorks deal… the still unsold DreamWorks library that was estimated to be worth more than half of the overall transaction.
The Journal published on Saturday: "To help fund the deal, Paramount is trying to sell the DreamWorks library, which contains 59 films including "Gladiator" and "American Beauty." It has held exclusive negotiations with financier George Soros's private-equity team but didn't reach an agreement. Viacom told Wall Street this week it was "close to a deal," although people familiar with the situation say Paramount has opened the process to a broader range of investors and doesn't expect to finalize a sale until later this spring."
Reporting. It still works.
To play the devil's advocate, what can any of us expect from Traditional Media other than anxiety and confusion? If you can't control the news, the traditions have a tendency to snap under the pressure. Yet to succumb to the tyranny of the new could be an equally bad choice. I make jokes about The Paper of Record, but I believe in the notion of that standard existing. I simply cannot accept the old standard of "you'll believe what we write and if you question it, you are a radical troublemaker" anymore. "The Record" must combine the standards of the past and the standards of the future. The idea that someone stands back and really considers the whole picture before reporting it is a wonderful thing. But that requires some real consideration of the whole picture, and not the restructuring of what The Man wants to have printed in the paper. It also means not acting like a rebel (see: Wells' aggression against Gail Berman's weight and power…. not necessarily in that order) for the sake of being rebellious.
Most people don't like change. And when change is rocking the foundations of your employer, fewer still find peace in the process.
Jealousy, fear, dismay, disgust, dismissiveness, arrogance and rage are all emotions that make sense. Because the next incarnation is not going to be Traditional Media or what we now know as New Media. The answer lies in some combination of these elements. And, as with all innovation, it is rare that the participants in the transition reap the benefit of change. Far more often, the first wave is destroyed and it is the second or the third wave that gains the perspective to make the ideas of the first wave into viable commercial success.
We are all, my friends, in the first wave. And Wolfgang Petersen couldn't come up with a more threatening wall of water in our way.
We are, to stretch a Terry Malick metaphor, John Smiths, so in love, but so unsure of the future that we cannot allow ourselves the love that is right in front of us. So John Rolfe will have our Pocahontas, for his heart does not beat as loud.
We are, on all sides of the media, in search of our place. And it is terribly elusive right now. And so we fight and bicker and point a lot of fingers and make a lot of mistakes that we normally would not have made, on and off the web… all too arrogant to take the heat when it comes.
May the answers come swiftly so that the pain can be as sharp and sweet and short as possible.
January 5, 2006 - The Business Of 2005, Pt 1
January 9, 2006 - The Business Of 2005, Pt 2
January 11 - Munich In Sequence | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3
January 12 - V For Vendetta
