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July 03, 2008
Is This Anything Close To Journalism?
It's so odd a combination of stories in one week that I almost suspect that Harvey Weinstein's minions planted them for him.
First, some very silly person at the Village Voice goes through Harvey's garbage. Then, someone claims to be writing a Weinstein tell-all from the inside, apparently from the assistant's desk. And though Page Six parrots the claim that the author did not sign a non-disclosure, he or she also says, "Our database of Miramax files is huge...," which quite assuredly means those files were illegally obtained, including the "proof" tape sent to Page Six... a tape which actually puts Harvey in a very positive light, unless you think he is shy about being seen as brash.
Thing is... neither of these stories, printed in mainstream papers first, rises above the cesspool level of gossip. Do we really need or want to know who Harvey called back and when? Do we really need some non-entity telling us how Harvey's accounting didn't jibe with Disney's or when he got laid? (One major reporter working for a major outlet had Harvey's extracurriculars nailed down... and got shut down. There is a big leap from Page Six boasting to a publishing deal that doesn't have you spending a lifetime and a fortune in court for writing a gossip rag book about a fairly minor public figure outside of NY and LA.)
Harvey is a big target and doesn't need me defending him... and much of his behavior has been beyond defense. But stabbing your dueling partner in the neck from behind while he picks a foil is weak.
Standards... lower... lower...
Posted by dpoland at July 3, 2008 04:35 PM
Comments
Dude, page six has very little to do with journalism. It's Murdoch's hate toy, that he sicks on anyone who bothers him. Stating the bar has gone lower, would be to imply that the Post ever had any journalistic intergrity outside of Peter Vessey. Which we all know is simply not true.
Posted by: IOIOIOI ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/nav-commenters.gif)
at July 3, 2008 10:56 PM
"Some very silly person at the Village Voice"?
Actually, the editor in chief. Who's also a good, serious, award-winning journalist that just likes to have fun sometimes.
Friend of mine, so I'm biased. But check out some of the stuff he's written about Scientology in the past.
Posted by: LYT at July 3, 2008 11:57 PM
i read the trash article and could not stop laughing at the preposterous bullshit posing as journalism. I loved the first couple of paragraphs where the author explains that he wasn't digging through the garbage, he just happened by and saw a bunch of scripts in a recycling bin.
Then he started going through it.
So it's perfectly alright to be a dumpster diving journalist if the contents are in an uncovered recycling bin?
LYT, he might be a friend of yours, but the time he spent justifying dumpster diving is what shows how ethically empty he is.
If "He likes to have fun", fine, but that's not a justification for being no better than a rag sheet writing, dumpster diving moron.
I'm with Dave. The man doesn't need defending, but it doesn't mean the guy who wrote the story isn't an ass with the integrity of a papparazzi.
The only thing separating respectable journalists from hacks is a line. When you go through trash for a puff piece, you crossed the line. There are no standards anymore. Writers feel as if they can move the line back and forth at their own discretion. The line exists for a reason. Your friend needs to remember that.
Posted by: anghus at July 4, 2008 03:14 AM
Page Six? Does anyone take them seriously?
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/page-six-unhappy-about-being-worst-person/3426032645
Posted by: doug r at July 4, 2008 08:21 AM
Picture this poor soul cackling as he digs through the trash. That's a dark night of the empty soul.
Posted by: christian at July 4, 2008 11:15 AM
Was I the only person who read the garbage article and thought that it could very easily have been a plant by Harvey? He comes off well but gruff enough to fit in with his reputation. There's no major information but a few tidbits that promote upcoming projects. I just read it as an amusing throw-away article.
Posted by: djk813 at July 4, 2008 10:58 PM
Luke... I hear ya.
Thing is, smart guys like him used to keep stories like this - he would have still gone through the garbage and looked for something that could have been used in a real story later - at the bar or over the diner counter, where they belong.
We are all, it seems, putting more and more of our garbage on public display with the idea that if it amuses us, it might amuse others. The sad part is that this piece will probably be read by more people than anything else Tony Ortega writes this year. And that tends to be a corrosive influence.
Moreover, folks like Patrick Goldstein and Anne Thompson pick up on it... because if it's from mainstream media, it must be non-toxic. But how wrong they are...
Posted by: David Poland at July 6, 2008 11:35 AM
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