Week Of October 30, 2006 - Mon / Wed / Fri

November 1, 2006

This is one of those columns that I wrestle with publishing. It is, on one real level, just bitching and moaning. And on the other, it speaks to serous core issues of how this industry operates.

What keeps it worth discussing - and hey, guess I went that way, as you are reading this now - is that it continues to evolve in the era of Traditional Media chasing New Media like Tom chases Jerry.

My issue this week is that someone actually drew out that increasingly nutty chestnut of long lead and short lead. The reality is that the notion of that is over, with a capital O. There is only one distinction left in the media's relationship with the film industry… trusted and untrusted.

Very few seem to want to come to grips with this notion. Having lived through the early years of internet coverage of movies, I am aware of how awkward it all can be. It was easier to say "no" than "yes" and, even once the door started widening, there was a sense that the studios were still having a hard time sorting out those who were adding to the support of a film and those just looking for a free ride.

As recently as last week, I got a note from a long-established, albeit third-tier web-based writer who was being shut out of a studio's press screenings because content from a junket from last year hadn't run when scheduled. (The fact that this journo's parent was dying was apparently a bad excuse.) This is not a call that would be made with any Traditional Media outlet. But the web folks are still vulnerable to the slings and arrows, even after years of working with studios, in a way that TM is not.

But let's get back to the bigger picture…

The only distinction between Long Lead and Short Lead in this moment is that some Long Lead outlets actually have long print cycles. However, these do not include the weeklies, and certainly not the daily papers.

Long Lead is not a necessity, aside from a couple of weeks before release or in some rare cases, longer to accommodate talent from the film that will not be available to writers closer to release.

Long Lead is a tradition. Long Lead is a habit.

Long Lead has become damaging because it really isn't LONG Lead in many instances. For instance, Entertainment Weekly's ability to run a Borat cover three weeks in advance of the movie and the lack of value - many of us would say, negative value - in that moment (as there was no movie in release or due for almost a month) was made possible by Long Lead access for Entertainment Weekly. I'm not saying that Fox didn't negotiate with EW and accept that early slot. But to be dispossessed of a cover on the week of release by a Brad & Cate cover the week after Babel opened and a week before that film goes wide-ish?

But the underbelly of Long Lead in this era is far more damaging than that.

None of the Long Lead outlets are now without websites. And as the history of Long Lead went, the freedom to gossip around the watercooler was never a big problem. But the watercooler is now a virtual one. And entertainment journalism has developed its own Ain't It Cool News inside of itself. "I heard" has replaced objective, and even subjective, reporting.

We in the media have become like the studios in a weird way. Whatever version of the story we feel like pushing, we can find a source. There is always someone out there who wants to remain nameless who feels a film comes up short or who is ready to tell you that it's the best film of the year.

So that brings us back to the hard and fast reality. In order for a media outlet to take a position that makes any sense at all, it needs to have facts. What a particular Long Lead journalist or two or an HFPA member thinks of a film is not a fact. There is no foundation, either subjective or objective. The truth is ghost, friendly or otherwise.

But instead of marshalling journalists (aka assets, pro or con) so that the studio army has a full cache of ammunition, they stick to this antiquated system of Long Lead and Short Lead, trying desperately to control what they have already lost control of… though not necessarily in a way that benefits any of the players.

And there is more damage being done because as this system slides into 1000 variations of itself, the information is not being controlled in any effective way. And with majors like The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Entertainment Weekly, and others more than willing to run "buzz" as news, there is no way, with the system as it is, to keep the cat in the bag.

The answer is personal responsibility.

I know… horrors.

But let's look at it from the journalist's side for a moment. As important as any paper with more than 500,000 readers a day is, the media mosh pit is not as sharply drawn as it was just five years ago. If you read today's print edition of The Envelope from the L.A. Times (assuming it actually made it into your paper… apparently, that was a hit or miss event this morning), you will see two exclusive images of Kate Winslet (that made a 30 year old beauty look like a 50 year old woman with a pound of make-up and a quart of Botox) and a bunch of stories that have already been written on Movie City News and other places weeks ago… and in one case, years ago. (The Il Postino Strategy and how it is still relevant!) And what is sadder to see than a rant from Patrick Goldstein about there being too much Oscar hype in an Oscar hype pull-out, opposite a page of ads that were used as filler when no studio bought the space. Ouch.

The Los Angeles Times bought Tom O'Neil, who has never been more than a light gossip from the east who relied on journalists from major outlets to tell him what they knew. Those journos continue to opine, both in their papers of record as well as via shared buzz and buzz facilitators like Gurus o' Gold. And when Dreamgirls, for instance, gets so much buzz without being seen, people make mock of it. But I am much more interested (and I haven't asked her and I won't) whether Anne Thompson left The Good German off of her Gurus Top 10 this week because she has seen it, not because she hasn't.

We are all feeding off the same teat. And we are all sharing information. And the studios are forcing a game of cloak and dagger. But what anyone knows, from childhood on, is that it is easier and in many ways more fun to go negative than positive. Most movies deserve that. But the ones that don't are as often as not killed with preciousness these days.

The power of my voice or your voice or a major outlet's voice should not come from when it is heard, but from the way that voice is valued by those who hear it. That is the nature of the jungle. But the unnatural way in which we are all handled by studios forces animals to find new ways to get fed.

When I hear myself responding to "this one said" or "that one said," I find myself sounding more and more arrogant. Because I don't care what any of "them" think. It's not that they aren't smart or insightful. But it is my job to have an opinion of my own. And after I form that opinion, it is my job to look at what voters, not press or publicists, think of these films.

But it gets harder and harder. Not reacting to all the buzz that isn't of my own creation becomes a full time job at this time of the year.

The answer is simple. Show me (and others you trust, who don't screw you for your willingness) the movie and let's agree about when it is to be written about. But making us swim through a sea of opinions qualified only by when they go to print… stupid and self-destructive.

Time to change. Time to reconsider. Time to make responsibility the Lead and not just long-held habit.

E Me.

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