The Hot Blog

« Hostel 2 Helps The Kids... | Main | How They Roll In Seattle »

June 05, 2007

Waxman Exits NYT Movie Coverage

Waxman and Holson's exit from movie coverage at the New York Times has been coming for a while. Nikki Finke got the call from Bernie and scooped the final disposition.

Regardless, in spite of years of complaining about their coverage, I am only pleased enough about their exits from the beat as the Paper of Record is serious about improving the standards that fell as neither veteran reporter of other beats ever "got" Hollywood enough to deliver... a problem neither was well edited enough to overcome.

The fact is, I still think that as a tool/weapon, Waxman is one of the best reporters in the journalism business. I have always maintained that had she been edited by someone who knew more about the industry than she did, her ability to dig up news and to doggedly pursue people who are not used to being pursued would be an enormous asset. Instead, she was let loose on the town and was all but banned (and occasionally that) at most studios at some point in her run.

She was often accused of bullying the studios to make non-stories that she insisted would be stories happen. The threat was that she would move forward even without cooperation. This method led to some of her greatest missteps, including completely misleading, wrongheaded, poorly informed stories on Fox's Kingdom of Heaven and later, Borat. She was also often accused of putting people on the record who felt they had established that they were off the record. Also, there were accusations that she would simply lie to the reps of people she wanted access to, claiming that one person was on the record (who was not) to pressure another.

Conversely, when things went bad about half way through her tenure, she was often used by studios - particularly Universal and Paramount - to spin false stories since they knew that she would run what they said on the record with minimal (if any) questioning.

I would argue that almost all of the problems, aggressive and passive, were caused by Waxman's intelligence and background doing hard news. Hollywood is not a hard news town. The cost of a movie, when push comes to shove, can be news, but it is never the kind of news that really matters. It doesn’t affect stock price. It doesn’t change the face of corporations… not anymore. It is, almost always, gossip. And the New York Times never met a Hollywood story that included Christians or ethnic groups that it didn't like or wouldn't print without really waiting for it to be a news story.

Moreover, both Waxman and Holson and presumably their bosses suffered badly from NYTAS (NY Times Arrogance Syndrome). The most aggravating example of that to me was the paper’s insistence on an "industry-changing slump" in 2005, which led to months of stories about The Slump, not only in the NYT, but in hundreds of papers that slavishly follow the NYT lead. When the industry was clear of the fifth biggest year in history (2005) - which was only a statistically significant slump based on the single biggest year in the history of the business (2004) and the anomaly of The Passion of The Christ in particular – the stories about the increases at the box office were never written. And still, as recently as May 28, Waxman insisted in using Paul Dergarabedian to continue the mythology of 2005 (“Two years ago it would have been unfathomable to be in such a strong position.” Only if you were buying the NYT spin, Paul. And by the way, based on the daily Top Tens, May 2007 ended up only $12 million ahead of May 2002 - 1% - and $45 million ahead of May 2004).

At some point, even I get sick of puncturing that balloon. But the problem is, the obstinacy means that The Paper of Record is not really looking at the current box office and the potential future trends because they are still busy rationalizing the past in which they got it wrong.

If Michael Cieply, who reportedly deflected Sharon issues when he was the beat editor by telling people he had no control over her work, got there earlier, maybe it would have been different. But even Cieply, who is a smart movie industry veteran, is flailing about a bit as he figures out his persona in the job. The Times is doing great, actually, in their soft coverage. It’s getting better all the time. But the film industry news beat is still a work in progress.

I look forward to reading Sharon someday on a subject she really does know. It won’t be the movies. But she is a very smart person, has a wonderful husband and family, and covering the right beat, could be one of the very best. Best wishes and when we next run into each other, Sharon, let’s talk about something else.

Posted by poland at June 5, 2007 01:18 AM

Comments

Post a comment