Week Of August 14, 2006 - No Column Mon / Wed / Fri

August 16, 2006

Boy, did I not plan on writing about this today…

But every time I think I am beyond talking about Traditional Media vs The Internet, they drag me back in.

And ironically, I have been dragged back into this sludge pot not so much by Patrick "What Are You Doing In My Public Pool?" Goldstein, but by some people who seem to be on my side of the issue… yet still seem to be towing the line in the wrong direction.

It's hard to speak to all of it, since there are so many ideas that conflict dramatically in these stories, even if various proponents of various ideas don't see that.

For instance, there are some grand assumptions taking place about the deals that websites have with the studios. The fact is that the deals many of us on the web make with studios for unique access come with far fewer strings than the deals that Traditional Media make.

(For the record, only about 20% of movies I see earlier than most other short lead press are of the "if you like it, write… if not, hold" variety. About 30% have no rules at all. And about 50% are movies on which I have to hold no matter what because of studio concerns about the trades launching their reviews because I have run mine, or because the studio has a specific hold arrangement with the trades or others, or because they have withheld the film from the trades until they can see it at a festival. I am currently on the third kind of hold on more than 6 films that will be viewed publicly in September and expect that number to double before Telluride opens 15 days from now. There are also a few titles I am free to write about, but haven't and am not in a rush to because I am not unkind to the handicapped.

What comments about it "not being in my interest" to write negatively about studio films suggest simply is not true. I write what I like. And if I have made an agreement, not for access, but for early access, I stick to it. Fact is, I have had more fights with studios that have not enforced their own rules lately than I have had in years. Running positive to run is not my game. And, in fact, my negative Superman Returns review was okayed by the studio not because they didn't want to enforce an embargo, but because they had allowed Jeff Wells to break it the day after he saw the film - I was in Seattle - and Anne Thompson followed suit in her blog. When you allow your rules to be broken, the rules are broken. And that's all Rabbi Dave has to say about that. )

The junket press is driven primarily by print and television, not the internet.

The Los Angeles Times and New York Times see movies early for one reason… so they can get features written, positive features. When is the last time you saw an attack on a movie or a studio in which the studio cooperated and/or screened the movie? I can't think of a single one.

As far as the trades go, their product is now seen in mainstream media via the newswires and the web. So aside from tradition, why do the trades have any right to run reviews earlier than anyone else? They are no longer just an industry thing.

The truth is, we are ALL making deals all the time. Traditional Friday review days are part of a service to the readership on local newspapers… no point in reviewing before the readers can use the info to inform their moviegoing choices. But as time has passed, that tradition has become a standard.

Generally speaking, I don't care if the release day embargo dies in the year to come. But let's not suggest this for all media outlets without considering the consequences. And critics will like them least of all, because the quick reality will be even fewer films being screened for anyone ahead of time without a new, stricter embargo deal in place.

There is no way that studios are going to start charting every critic and every media outlet and what embargo deals they have in place. If you rip down the standards, studio isolationism will grow. And worse, the "journalists" who have the advantage will be the "journalists" who are most willing to make deals advantageous to the studios. And make no mistake, the first ones to fold will be Traditional Media, where most editors could not give a shit about how the story comes in… so long as the story comes in.

This last week, there was a junket for Snakes on a Plane which featured a grand total of zero screenings. Were you able to count all the stories? I wasn't. Big papers, small papers, television, radio. Some stories mentioned that there was no screening. Some didn't. But if this is how Traditional Media is going to hold the line against the internet wave, the war is already over.

There is another mega-problem with turning Traditional Media into bloggers… nine out of ten times, it simply doesn't work.

Patrick Goldstein might say, "If I were king I would firmly plant our critics in the new media world with blogs and podcasts, allowing them not only to have more of a dialogue with readers, but extend their influence by addressing timely topics."

But what makes him think that anyone will care?

Who knows? Maybe Ken Turan would be the best blogger ever. Carina Chocano was born of the web and actually would have a longer resume qualifying her to write a blog than she had as a film critic when the LAT hired her. She is glib and funny and smart. Might work.

Remember, Manohla Dargis' weekly Q&A, before the LAT Calendar pay wall went up, was a home run about to happen. Why? Because Manohla is smart, iconoclastic, honesty intellectually curious, and funny as hell. And that is not a given just because someone has a job at a major paper.

But look at what happens when Old Media turns blogger? Gossip. Cheap shots. Desperation. Ugliness. Stupidity. And I understand completely why many of these previously competent journalists have gone the way of blogger insanity. They are selling their personalities, not any real insight. And that is what works on the web. And the idea of two more blogs from the LAT and another two from the LA Daily News and another one from LA Weekly and another from City Beat - and that's all just on movies - is insane, with a capital IN.

Yeah, I understand competition and everything, but the more the less merry. (And let me be clear, not all Traditional Media writers turned bloggers suck. Many are terrific. But it is a specific skill and requires a certain attitude and passion not often seen in longtime newspaper employees.)

Of course, what Patrick doesn't suggest in his piece is that he become a blogger. After all, he, not the LAT critics, is supposed to have a quick, smart answer to every turn in the industry.

And if you want my take - my gossip - on why I think Patrick doesn't want to go there… it's because he understands the power of less as more.

And he's right.

Here is a guy making six figures a year for writing one column a week and maybe one extra story a month. Now that's Old Media, baby!

The simple truth is, turning the critics into bloggers is one small idea. And the idea, also endorsed by Anne Thompson, that Traditional Media start breaking the traditional embargoes, is interesting… before you think about reality.

Patrick writes, "We never let studios tell us when to run news stories or schedule feature pieces, so why defer to their preferences when it comes to running reviews?"

Yeah… but bullshit. The LA Times and every other major outlet almost always runs features and news on the studio schedule. Is there a specific official agreement? Of course not. But there is an understanding. And every long lead or middle lead outlet lives and dies by it.

I don't know which Nov/Dec movie Patrick is seeing now for the LAT Fall Preview that usually drops mid-September. But he and the others on the LAT staff are seeing the movies for the benefit of the studio and to sell newspapers. It's not up for debate. It is an arrangement.

And I am not running Patrick down for operating under the long formed standards of the papers and the studios. But the bravado of claiming true editorial independence is laughable.

As far as news, I would love to see a story that deals with anything other that major studio transitions that isn't dealt about between journalists, editors, and studio publicists. Standard Operating Procedure. It would take me about two hours tomorrow to find out every story that the NY and LA Times are working on in both the features and news departments. I'm not going to because I don't really care about their features and if they have a great news story they are working on, I'm happy to let them break it and to not try to glom on because I can.

And the trades? You have to be kidding.

Of course, another all too familiar game of the media, old and new, is the carrot and the stick. Patrick continues from that last quote…

"If the studios squawk, we can always review their marketing campaign, which would probably be a treat for readers and, in all too many instances, allow us to write about something far more interesting than the movie itself."

Hardy har har. Threats. That's all that is. If you guys don't like it, we'll tear into you.

But the lesson of 2006 has been that it doesn't matter how many stories the media writes about the access they didn't get. Those marketing campaigns are bigger than we are.

The joke about how powerful Pauline Kael was is that she was powerful because the media was a more intimate industry than a high school A/V center is these days. Three networks… a couple of independents in major networks… no national newspaper, except the Wall Street Journal for businessmen… no internet… no national radio… no cable TV. With due respect, Pauline Kael in 2006 would be Armond White or Anthony Lane. Honestly.

This is all the same kind of wannabe anarchic thinking that has the LA Times and others pushing the agenda of the day-n-date video release. Just because the technology exists and you can rationalize it doesn't make it good for the industry. The story of the influence of the internet - the New Media content of which has little to do with the devaluation of critics - is that as structure is broken, the system tightens up to protect itself. And soon, everything is marketing.

I have spent much of the last decade trying to convince studios that being an internet outlet does not require us all to break the conventions that the studios expect of every other form of media that they have been working with forever. But everyone seems more confused these days, not less, and I am losing the battle. Bad behavior is not only accepted, but encouraged by the lack of accountability. And honorable behavior is quickly back burnered so more attention can be paid to the "trouble spots."

In this new era, relevance is commanded, not demanded. And you know what… the same lowest common denominator reality is where it all still leads. So Traditional Media has to make a choice - just as New Media, the Old Media of three years from now, does - how do we want to play? Trying to compete with every blogger in the whole wide wide world is dangerous… because there is no reason why Old Media can be expected to win.

But if you ask me, there is still enormous value in Traditional Media… value that comes form the great traditions of TM, not from how quickly it competes.

E Me.

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