Week Of February 5, 2007 - Mon / Wed / Fri

February 7, 2007

This Thing We Do…
Part 2

A major part of the media equation is sourcing. Matt Drudge changed the world when he broke the domain of what had been lunchtime chatter - evolving into AOL and CompuServe IRC chatroom banter - into a website that really never reported any of its stories… but reported on the reporting of stories brilliantly. The resulting explosion when Newsweek didn't publish the Clinton/Lewinsky story and some angry reporter/editor/assistant/whomever leaked the piece to Drudge was the tipping point. Of course, the story that mattered was the news of Clinton/Lewinsky itself. But the sources were not the people in and around the scandal, but rather the media that did use those people as sources.

In the entertainment media, it was Ain't It Cool News that changed that dynamic. The oft-refuted, but generally understood motto of the site - All The News That's Fit To Steal Off Some Movie Exec's Desk - has evolved into something quite different in time. But the basic conceit was that journalism was for suckers and that the free flow of information about movies being made was a righteous pursuit. The film business has always been one of secrecy followed by massive promotion and marketing, whether in the studio system days or last weekend. Ain't It Cool News felt free to strip away that secrecy. And suddenly, every temp in Hollywood, every aspiring writer/director/actor/best boy was a source of news. Sometimes it was accurate. Sometimes it was not. Most often, it was opinion, so no right or wrong existed and outsiders - often traditional journalists - could use the material to whatever end suited their separate goals.

Ain't It Cool News didn't need access the way traditional media did. They didn't get stuck at the velvet rope in front, too small and ugly to get past the bouncers. They went in through the back door, assisted by the kitchen staff that was rooting for the assholes they worked for to be brought down. And then, in short order, the "assholes" realized that the power on the site was being given to whoever opened the door. And so, quietly, often denying it directly to the face of those still patiently dealing with the front door hassles, real insiders started sneaking the AICN crew into the party.

Meanwhile, many of us were in between the Big Media players who were always quickly ushered in past the rope and the AICN world of backdoor access. We got the best and worst of both worlds. Hypocrisy became an inevitable part of the process, as the studio rules for the middle class were toughest, as they needed the muscle of the big guns and desperately feared the torpedo power of the backdoor boys.

Interestingly, Big Media was quite happy to embrace AICN and its progeny. They were not yet seen as a threat because news still wasn't seen as news until it was processed by Traditional Media.

But that would change…

One of the major distinguishing features of AICN was that it was not born of the machine and that it was edited by non-pros who had a vested interest in their subject. There was very little editorial distance. This is not to say that every one of or even most of the editorial choices were faulty. Of course, there was the illusion that the site edited itself. But that would be a false notion, not unlike the illusion that actors aren't reading from a screenplay or are actually like the characters in a movie. There was also very little accountability for errors. Readers came to expect them and studios would get frustrated by them (though sometimes they were in the favor of a studio) and then simply move on as though they had never happened.

As someone on the movie beat at a major paper, it had to be terribly frustrating after a while to have to play by such stringent rules when AICN and a growing cadre of sites played, seemingly, by no rules - other than the ones they set and changed for themselves on any whim - at all. A news outlet would never let a reporter simply acquire a handful of stinky shit and fling it at a studio or movie without offering context and balance. But man, did it look like fun when AICN did it every day.

Even on a broader canvas, the goal of the journalist was objectivity… balance… a semblance of the truth. But oddly, AICN's truth was not necessarily false. Often it was just a narrow point of view. And whether you work in an office or a studio or at the Burger King, we all know that every day is made up of dozens or hundreds of moments and points of view about them, which lead, in time, to an objective sense of the reality.

Gossips rush to print. Journalists wait.

When Newsweek's editors decided to hold the Clinton/Lewinsky story for another week to make sure every "i" was dotted, every "t" was crossed and every stain was accounted for, they were probably being a little too old school. But thankfully for Matt Drudge - and all of us, really - they had done the vast majority of the work before Drudge broke their story as his own. But very few remember how the story happened. They remember that it broke.

And so, internet journalism has since been burdened with the self-defeating notion that first is more important than right. This is not to say that Traditional Media hasn't fought the same impulse from the start. But the hierarchy was built, it seems, on the papers that ultimately did the best, most complete job. The Paper of Record was often first, but more often, it was the best at creating a record that deserved to be the standard.

But Traditional Media does have New Media in a checkmate in one clear way. No New Media business has yet to have shown the ability to compete in a real way in breaking news… not that there is much breaking news in the entertainment business. The Smoking Gun delivers documents that Traditional Media has used as source material, but the vast majority of these are public documents. So, like many New Media plays, they came up with another idea of what people might want to read, playing on the most significant conceit of web life… the freedom to make up your own mind about things by having more complete access to content. AOL's TMZ is a pure gossip play and has, indeed, broken through to be competitive for scoops with Traditional Media. But notably, they have a massive budget compared to most start-ups, a built-in marketing advantage and, of course, a taste for the finest cheese.

The advantage that New Media has been able to carve out is the role of being a massive op-ed column. And it is here that the two medias seem to be ready to compete head to head.

On Friday… unleash hell…

E Me.

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