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October 03, 2007

When It Gets Interesting...

The battle between the online world and Traditional Media often causes shoulder shrugs. What's the big deal? Some choose to misinterpret it as simply a turf war, but today, another case in which news may not be being reported by TM because it broke on the web.

The case of the theft of materials from the Indiana Jones IV production office on the Universal lot and the subsequent effort of the thief to sell the materials to various gossip purveyors, online and off, was broken yesterday by IESB.net with a slew of details.

IESB.net - Over 2000 production stills, plenty of sensitive paperwork including a complete production budget breakdown, possibly the script from Indiana Jones 4 and multiple computers were stolen from Spielberg’s Universal Studio office.

Later, the LA Times “reported” late last night - Computers and photographs for director Steven Spielberg's upcoming fourth "Indiana Jones" film were stolen, and DreamWorks Pictures SKG has asked local law enforcement to investigate, a studio spokeswoman said.

The DreamWorks spokesperson, Kristin Stark, “declined to say where and when the theft took place.” So the LA Times, which did not credit iesb in any way for handing them the story to further report on, chose not to offer either iesb’s reporting or any more than, “Stark said the stolen items contained ‘confidential and proprietary materials’ related to the movie, which is considered a potential blockbuster for next summer.”

But IESB spoke to a potentially much bigger story, which is completely unmentioned in the LA Times report. IESB reports that the stolen materials were offered to a number of websites, including the Time-Warner owned TMZ.com. They also report that an arrest was made yesterday afternoon.

If this is true, both the LA Times and the trades chose not to or were unable to report on this.

Moreover, the IESB report continues - The IESB has been informed that TMZ.com may had obtained some of stolen property and were on the verge of running the story on its TV division until Paramount lawyers stepped in.

TMZ.com went as far as promoting their upcoming story but we have been informed that they have scrapped their original plans.

Again, nothing from Traditional Media.

And what IESB didn’t know Tuesday afternoon when it reported all this is that the TMZ TV show did, indeed, offer up details of the IJ4 budget that, if their report was correct can logically be presumed to be from the stolen materials.

Oh yes... and the intrepid coverage of TMZ... not a word about any theft, bust, budget, or nothing on their website. Just sayin'...

And now things will play out as they do.

It is possible that IESB has got it completely wrong and the internet news community will be humiliated. Heck, E! Online is already running their stolen-from-IESB report on the story without crediting the source to whose story they added ZERO.

But if this story is true, TMZ has shown their ass in a way significantly worse and more reckless than the celebrity dingbats they obsess on. Will Traditional Media cover this after hyping TMZ as an important news source, citing TMZ reports as though they had the earned authority of the New York Times? Will the wall of "we don't speak about sources" be TMZ's way out... or will anyone even bother to question them?

Will TM ever credit IESB for breaking this story?

Will TM ever do more than quote DreamWorks spokespeople?

And beyond the details of this story, will Traditional Media ever look at the bigger picture of this story, as people are now being driven to major theft with petty returns ($2000) in order to feed the gossips, online independents and mega-corp-owned alike.

None of this matters when you compare it to starving children and war. But with entertainment coverage as the soft, vulnerable underbelly of the journalism world, you have to realize that as standards are lowered and lowered and lowered in this world… as a FBI sting operation to recover a stolen computer is unreported… as bigger papers feel free to steal news without offering the credit to a website that they would to the smallest local newspaper and then Reuters (and Defamer and IGN) choose to quote them as the originating report and not the real source… the same surely will start happening in the cases of more important stories.

And then some TM hothead will go on whining about 12 year olds at their computers writing about their bowel movements as the defining culture of internet writing... and steal yet another story from another website, somehow feeling self-righteous in their self-soothing arrogance and delusion.

Posted by poland at October 3, 2007 11:41 AM

Comments

Posted by: Alan Cerny at October 3, 2007 12:31 PM

Posted by: hendhogan at October 3, 2007 12:57 PM

Posted by: PetalumaFilms at October 3, 2007 08:38 PM

Posted by: Rob at October 4, 2007 06:53 PM

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