Week Of April 23, 2007 - Mon / Wed / Fri

April 23, 2007

Yours, Mine & Ours

Over the weekend, I found myself responding to a blog comment about journalists and others who are involved in the film business "from a remove."  The comment was a bit brassy and focused heavily on the acquisition of sexual favors from actresses, but I wanted to address the overall issue of the complexity of becoming someone with all that good stuff and the sincere value that many of us in "the remove" have for our work and lives.

You can read that piece here.

As I continued to consider the issue, another angle to the issue and how we all relate to one another in the various areas of this industry struck me.  Maturing in this business - or any other, I suppose - means finding your place in the social structure.  Challenging that is the constant judgment of hierarchy.  Someone is always making more, screwing more, getting more attention, having more success, and, in general, dancing on the green, green other side that we all think we see so clearly from a distance ... to our detriment.

When I write it out or say it out loud, it seems rather self-evident.  But so many of the conflicts inherent in the day-to-day life in this town is based first on a misunderstanding of or discomfort about our positions and the positions of others.

Without getting into personal situations, one conflict I can point to is the conflict between entertainment journalists.  Amusingly, I am often singled out as the rare e-journalist who feels free to criticize others in public.  But if you knew how much worse the arguments about worth were in private conversations, my public call outs would make me seem like a genteel kindergartener.  Nonetheless, on a broader spectrum, I think a lot of the animosity from the Traditional Media towards New Media comes from a basic misunderstanding (often used by New Media as a defensive form of offense) of the fact that we still occupy very different places on the spectrum.

It is understandable that there is some very real discomfort among Traditional Media about the ongoing value given their contribution.  And the Traditionals have done such a great job of overselling the virtues of The New to the world, they have convinced themselves that there is a direct threat.  Cranky TMers have positioned this essential truth as TM delivers all the news via the expenditures for reporters to report the news while NM just piggybacks on their reporting.  Essentially this is true.  But it need not be an either/or proposition. 

A big part of the paradigm of reporting is not just being there to write down what is happening or to be told the same.  Putting the pieces together, whether you are Traditional or New is, and always has been, part of the job.  A journalist, like a scientist, when faced with more than a straight forward story, must hypothesize and then test the hypothesis.  The standard for the proof of that hypothesis is the ultimate test of whether a story should run. 

For the record, almost every complaint I ever issue about stories in major papers comes quick definitively from what I consider a clear failure to proove the hypothesis of the story.  It's not personal.  It's not competitive. It's that simple.  (Which is not to say that I have never been personal, competitive or simply petty.  But it is more rare than some of the tender egos that get upset with me would allow themselves to admit.)

It is true that any asshole can have an opinion ... and invariably will.  But the standard of the best of what is called blogging (often seeming to be a unilateral way of blurring the lines of quality and diffusing the most valuable reporting that often goes on in "blogs") is much higher than that indeed.  The illusion that some in Traditional Media seem to want to create now is that everything in TM is based on hands on reporting by those media outlets, which is absurd on its face.  We all work with a base of information that has been built up over centuries, decades, years, weeks, days, and seconds. 

Wherever it came from, the information about the font in, for instance, the infamous Dan Rather/Bush letters, was reporting by any standard.  Flip side, Matt Drudge's publishing information that Newsweek gathered and was holding about Monica Lewinsky is not really his reporting.  But here is the rub ... most of the "news" in all media is not heavily reported, but given to the media, whether by other media or by those involved with the story.  Does writing up a press conference really constitute "reported news?"

It wasn't long ago that Traditional Media (and the use of the term "Mainstream Media" could be used for much of TV news and some print, but the reach of the web is potentially greater on any day than all but a small percentage of TM) was the absolute gatekeeper of the information pipeline.  And that is what's changed, more than anything else.  The dynamic of New Media is going through its own evolution that is quite separate from Traditional Media. 

And yet the eye is on the competition in so many situations, so much more than on each of our respective challenges. 

No wonder so many are so cranky.

And of course, paradigm shifts make for fascinating discussion, but are not a very good way of understanding the needs and stresses of the individual.  If you are fearful about your TM future and see that NM requires that many of its apparent successes thrive on personality and not the tools you have used in your work for many years, concern about paying the mortgage is not unfounded.  But the target of ire ... it's not on the other side of the fence ... it's right in your personal arena.

Moving on to the rest of the industry, the delineation of each segment of the community is a far more challenging thing.  So much of the industry experience is aspiration to the "next level" or next segment.  But the segments of the industry that people most crave are the ones that are the most elusive.  As people mature into their industry success, they make themselves less and less vulnerable to outsiders. 

Ironically, the most highly glamorized part of the movie business is the younger crowd, where there is actually greater accessibility.  Younger people are more open and explore more.  Still, the more the universe of these young celebrities, execs, and yes, even "the (somewhat) removed" challenges them with the manipulative perspicacities of those "outside the family," the closer the young set tends to hold its own, with whom they share a very unique life experience.  It's not (necessarily) the money, the looks, or the fame ... it is the combination plate to which very few can be truly empathetic.

And, as in any social group, there are The Marrieds, The Singles, The Parents, The Senior Execs, The Aspiring Execs, The Drinkers, The Sober, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc. 

Often, The Marrieds want to play with The Singles or the The Aspiring want to get close to The Seniors, etc.  Sometimes that is filled with tension.  Sometimes it is not.  But it often has nothing to do with hierarchy or snobbery or anything else negative.  And sometimes it does.

Power is often defined by the freedom to choose.  But often the limitations we face we put upon ourselves by not believing that the boundaries are not always in need of judgment.

E Me.

---

Week Of April 3, 2006 - Life In the Bubble - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of April 10, 2006 - List Week - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of April 17, 2006 - Review Week - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of April 24, 2006 - Overlooked Week - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of May 1, 2006 - Mystery Week - Tue / Wed / Fri
Week Of May 8, 2006 - How We Watch Week - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of May 15, 2006 - Premature Week - Oscar Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of May 22, 2006 - B-13 Mon / Inconvenient Wed / Fri
Week Of May 29, 2006 - Wed / Fri
Week Of June 5, 2006 - 666 Tue / Iraq Doc Wed / Seattle Fri
Week Of June 12, 2006 - SIFF Mon / SIFF Wed / Fri
Week Of June 19, 2006 - Cinevegas Mon/Deliver Us Wed/Prada Fri
Week Of June 26, 2006 - Pirates Mon / Super Again Wed / Fri
Week Of July 5, 2006 - Wed
Week Of July 12, 2006 - M. Night Mon | You, Me & Wed | Monster House Fri
Week Of July 17, 2006 - 8 A Year Mon / Water Wed / Revamp Fri
Week Of July 24, 2006 - Comic-Con Mon / Gossip Wed / Fri
Week Of July 31, 2006 - Mel G Mon / Talladega Wed / Fri
Week Of August 7, 2006 - Mon / Wed
Week Of August 14, 2006 - No Column Mon / Wed / Snakes Fri
Week Of August 21, 2006 - Snakey Mon / Anniversary Wed / Scoundrels Fri
Week Of August 28, 2006 - Mon Love / Berloff Wed / Fri
Week Of September 4, 2006 - Thur
Week Of September 11, 2006 - TIFF Mon / Bobby Wed / Fr
Week Of September 18, 2006 - Mon / TIFF 1 Wed / TIFF 2 Fri
Week Of September 25, 2006 - Mon / Wed
Week Of October 2, 2006 - Atonement Mon / Wed / Indie Fri
Week Of October 9, 2006 - Flags Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of October 16, 2006 - Mon / Epagogix Wed
Week Of October 23, 2006 - TCIFF Mon / Wed / Catch A Fri
Week Of October 30, 2006 - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of November 6, 2006 - Mon / Dead Girl Wed / Fri
Week Of November 13, 2006 - Bond Mon / Wed / TomKat Fri
Week Of November 20, 2006 - Mon / Thankful Wed
Week Of November 27, 2006 - Mon / Auteur Wed / Blood D Fri
Week Of December 4, 2006 - Mon / Wed
Week Of December 11, 2006 - Mon / Wed
Week Of December 18, 2006 - Mon / Wed / COM Fri
Week Of December 27, 2006 - Wed / Worst of 2006 Fri
Week Of Janiuary 3, 2007 - Best Of 2006 Wed
Week Of Janiuary 8, 2007 - Mon / COM Book Wed
Week Of January 17, 2007 - Little Red Writing Hood Wed
Week Of January 29, 2007 - Mon
Week Of February 5, 2007 -This Thing We Do Wk - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of February 12, 2007 - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of February 26, 2007 - Rough Oscars Mon / Zodiac Wed / Doc & Foreign Fri
Week Of March 5, 2007 - Mon / Fri
March 14 / March 21/ March 28
Week Of April 4, 2007 - Wed / Grindhouse Fri
Week Of April 9, 2007 - Indie Distirbution Mon / Star Ranking Wed / Top 20 Fri
Week Of April 16, 2007 - Mon / Piaf Wed