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February 06, 2006
Variety: Now with Less Jargon, Twice the Loathing
Well, the 21st century is off to a bumpy start at Variety, where efforts to get all electronic and shit have yielded the garish contrast of retroactively tagging Army Archerd as "Hollywood's Original Blogger" while running not one but two pieces implying the inferiority of blogs versus print monoliths like, well, Variety.
Confused? Maybe the paper's Nicole LaPorte can explain:
Internet news outlets rely on few, if any, fact-checkers. Sometimes they report the truth. Sometimes they don't.
When they focus on showbiz executives, as they did last week with a flurry of reports about hirings and firings at Paramount, and merger rumors involving ICM and Endeavor, these Web sites have proved to be a major disruption.
One studio flack says that when scathing items are posted about execs, "it's like Chernobyl."
Unlike celebs, who grow thick-skinned from their daily battles with paparazzi, industry executives feel blindsided and wounded when they're the subject of Internet rumors -- and the disruptive effects aren't easy to control. ...
"It's very nasty," says one studio PR rep. "Guys like me are being slammed by (print and electronic) journalists who are trying to sort out the truth, as well as being completely hammered by the people who write our paychecks."
I know, I know. When studio publicists--those gilded beacons of truth and honor--cannot spin or decontextualize or outright lie fast enough to keep up with the "flurry of reports" coasting down on them from the Web, it might just be time to close down the Internet.
But wait--there is more:
In Hollywood these days, executives and their publicists spend a good part of their days reacting to Web sites, which in many ways are glorified -- albeit more cleverly written -- tracking boards.
For all the ruckus these rumor mills are creating, their reach is decidedly insular. None comes close to receiving the amount of traffic of, say, the Drudge Report, which last December was viewed by 2.85 million people. Defamer was viewed by 905,000 during that time.
In fairness to LaPorte, she carefully avoids using the word "blog" anywhere in her piece, which makes it easier to lump together offending outlets like Defamer (an entertainment and industry gossip blog), Movie City News (an industry news site which hosts blogs [including, of course, the one you are reading]), Fishbowl L.A. (an industry news blog with some entertainment gossip) and others. And while lumping together is essential when using (as LaPorte does) Nielsen traffic stats--which supply a decent enough comparison between high-traffic sites--the figures belie individual stats that reveal a little more significant influence. For example, Defamer's Site Meter stats are available on its front page, and even if you reacted to the its 3.6 million visits in December with a breathy "Feh," how is LaPorte's evidence of 905,000 unique, Nielsen-official visitors supposed to marginalize the blog? Because, as she writes, it does a third of the traffic of the Drudge Report? I mean, what?
Of course, as MCN's own Gary Dretzka implied today in an open letter to LaPorte, competition can be scary. And film sites don't attract and keep millions of readers because their information is inaccurate:
Defamer, as far as I can see, prints gossip that comes to it via several other sources (Page 6, for one), as well as its snitches within the industry. Only Variety, apparently, takes the items as gospel, or threats to the stability of Hollywood. It's widely read because of its editors' snarky, often hilarious approach to the material, not as a harbinger of the truth to come ... although it's right more often than it's wrong.
In your slam against Movie City News, it's likely that you've confused one aspect of its coverage (David Poland's The Hot Blog) with the rest of its mission. Like any good blog, it not only provides space for other voices (mine included), but it also links to many other sites and sources (yours included). It gives credit (or blame) where it's due. If the material in The Hot Blog (or Poland's daily column, The Hot Button) is so consistently misguided, as you assert, why would anyone of consequence in the industry take it as seriously as you think they do?
And talk about your double-barrelled, buckshot bitchiness! You know Variety boss Peter Bart cannot camp out on the sidelines without his own thwack for good measure:
What everyone agrees is that there is no appropriate defense mechanism to the contagion of rumors. Bloggers believe fact-checking is an insult to the basic precepts of blogdom. Chat systems are designed to spread buzz, not refute it. The PR types believe that in denying rumors they only lend them credibility.
Right. The Basic Precepts of Blogdom, that slim volume we bloggers all must read before we hunker down with our ceremonial pajamas and fuzzy slippers and pledge our lives to complete fabrications and plagiarisms and general malfeasance. We also take a vow against preening sanctimony like LaPorte's and Bart's, which might have something to do with the power and scope of the blog phenomenon itself. Do not take my word for that, however--merely an opinion. I did not fact-check it.
Actually, I would have had this online about three hours ago had I not been fact-checking the rest of it like so much of the stuff I write. Wordplay got bought at Sundance? Call IFC. Weinsteins borrowing film clips from Magnolia? Call Eamonn Bowles. Why? Because there are no sloppy media--only sloppy journalists. In fact, I even called Bart to ask where Variety's own blogs fit into his sweeping moral pronouncements. No response yet, but if/when I receive one, you can bet I will place it here. Meanwhile, if you will excuse me, I must make sure Army Archerd is all caught up on those Precepts.
Posted by stvanairsdale at February 6, 2006 05:32 PM
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