Variety to bloggers: Would you (please) drop dead!

I guess it was inevitable that Variety, our most venerable trade paper, would eventually respond to the chorus of cat-calls from the blogosphere about the way it covers Hollywood. It finally did so over the weekend, in typical fashion, with an entire phalanx of stories, some quite thoughtful, some hilariously wheezy and out of touch. (Full disclosure: I am mentioned frequently in Cynthia Littleton's blogger vs. blogger piece, though I think she was quite fair to my role in various blog disputes.) So where to begin?

The most interesting piece is a first-person account by veteran Variety reporter Michael Fleming, who is the industry's go-to guy when they want to give a scoop to a trade paper. Fleming is an old pro and his piece makes some important points, notably about the bullying and constant contentiousness in the blogosphere. As he writes: "I just wish many bloggers could be a bit more gracious--and I don't think it would make them boring. Even six months ago, it was fun to laugh at the meanness and negativity on the web. But as times get tougher, it's not fun any more."

Fair enough. He also zings the Queen of Mean, Deadline Hollywood's Nikki Finke, not only for her nastiness but for her lack of transparency. Being a good reporter, Fleming gets her dead to rights, noting that on Jan. 29, 2008, at 2:33 pm., Finke said that ICM chief Jeff Berg was leaving the troubled agency. "A little later, that item disappeared," he writes. "A new post materialized with the same time stamp, and this lead: 'Let me knock down that rumor making the rounds that Jeff Berg is supposedly leaving ICM on April 15th...' Like some other bloggers, Finke was in the unenviable position of debunking a rumor that she had started."

My only beef with Fleming's piece is his complaint about the "anonymous barbs" that frequently show up in web posts. His complaint about the tone is fair but when it comes to anonymity, it would be hard to top Variety itself, whose entire journalistic model rests on anonymous, unattributed sources. It's impossible to open up the trade on any given day and not find a story--like this recent story about Brad Pitt being cast in a new film--that runs without any credited sourcing at all. It's the deal Variety makes to get the stories. Whoever provides the leak, be it an agent, manager, producer or studio exec, knows that Variety will never divulge their identity. Without that anonymity, Variety would never get all those scoops but it seems slightly hypocritical to complain about the lax journalistic standards in the blogosphere when your front page is filled every day with deliberately unsourced material. It's telling that Variety didn't run one quote from anyone in its entire three-story package of blogger criticism.

Still, Fleming is a solid, principled reporter. I don't know what to call his boss, Variety editor Peter Bart, except for lazy. He's launched his own blog, which you'd have to call half-hearted at best, since he often goes days and days between posts. But his column in this package complaining about blogger excess is an embarassment, and not just because of his Olympian disdain for what he calls the "aura of desperation" that surrounds blogdom. (When you write blog items shamelessly hocking studios for Oscar ads as Bart did, that's desperation.) Most of the column is Bart musings, bolstered by constant references to a six-month old Atlantic magazine piece ("Why I Blog") by Andrew Sullivan.

I hate to be the one to break the news to Mr. Bart, but in the blogosphere, six months is an eternity. I'd suggest that he read up the subject and find some more timely context for his arguments. Bart's major point seems to be that blogdom has yet to discover a workable business model, hence its nastiness and desperation. Peter, take it from someone who knows all too well: No one in today's media, whether it's my paper or yours or any pajama-clad bogger, has a reliable business model anymore. When it comes to a downward economic slide, we're all tumbling down the elevator shaft together.   

Photo of Brad Pitt by Liz O. Baylen / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[mike fleming]

Patrick, when I mentioned "anonymous barbs," I wasn't specific enough. I meant the unsubstantiated comments that follow blog posts and are often more bracing than the original stories. Bloggers are held accountable for their words, and some of the dispatches I read are gutsy, and take advantage of an exciting new forum. Giving contributors the opportunity to tee-off on subjects under the cloak of anonymity is the part of this deal that doesn't seem fair to me. Just because people eat it up doesn't make it right. Michael Fleming

[Paul Chambers]

Patrick, when are you going to start telling the truth? Tell me, doe it really HURT THAT MUCH?

Per Nikki Finke, who's equal to 50 of you (and that's you on a good day!)

. . . this month, Deadline Hollywood Daily celebrates its 3rd anniversary and 50 MILLION unique users. I'm still amazed that anyone reads me, much less cares what I write. Sure, I take shots regularly at Variety (as part of my ongoing "Your (Un)Trustworthy Trades" campaign) but only infrequently at Peter Bart (my unfortunate term for him was "Hollywood's buttboy"). I've heard from staffers at The Hollywood Reporter that editor Elizabeth Guider won't even let my name be used in print because I wrote that she was a lousy choice to lead that trade. And in the past week Patrick Goldstein has slammed me four times in the Los Angeles Times by mischaracterizing what I've written and even misquoting studio execs about me. (Summit Entertainment's Erik Feig insisted Goldstein run a clarification.) There's even a rumor around the newspaper that Goldstein has been asked to create controversy so as to generate more comments on his blog (he gets almost none), so that's why he's targeting me. The Wrap's Sharon Waxman has been online just a short while but already she's written open letters to me and articles about me.

Let me assure you: not only can I dish it out, I can also take it. But I do wish journalists writing about me were at least accurate. Goldstein hasn't been. Neither was Fleming. He singled out one story among the 3,328 posts I've filed on DHD because it contained, and then clarified, a rumor. The fact is I'm still wrestling with how to handle Hollywood rumors and always flag them as such. My goal is to acknowledge them, and try to confirm them or knock them down. .

Patrick, not only do you not write the truth. Your movie connections are 3rd rate, your Scoops are always a day late, and you're jealousy and envy reveal a bitter writer way out of his league. You're sad.

[Driving Miss Daisy]

Hey, why don't you guys just throw water on her. It worked for Dorothy.

[David Poland]

And Nikki's terrible behavior - which was soft-pedaled in Fleming's piece - gets off once again. Is it because you are afraid of her... want to be her... don't think it matters?

This is a great frustration with you, Patrick. You know better, but you remain silent in public, except to kill the messenger.

I'm not saying that the messenger isn't problematic also. But it's not the message, not the medium. Bart is an easy target. Aim higher. And that, right now, means Nikki.

For the record, I thought the Fleming piece was measured and 100% fair. Generous. But the main point is not the gotcha, but the issue of how things have shifted. Nikki is just as in bed with her sources as the trades have ever been... more so. She holds, speeds up, and buries stories by negotiation... just as Mr. Fleming has done successfully for years.

But she not only lies about it actively, pretending to be the lucky recipient of information developed by hard work, as opposed to being an open, unedited line to print for anyone who is high enough on the food chain and willing to give her “insight.” She also uses the very same stories that come across all of our e-mails and phones as cudgels, taking control away from one set of players, but not handing it to the public... but to another set of players... the ones who feed her. It is now a regular occurrence that this happens within the same offices, when bosses feed something to Nikki, spinning before they go to the real press, and undercut their highly paid, highly ranked employees. This is the kind of stuff that, if Sumner Redstone and others ever figured it out, would get very powerful people fired.

Slaves to getting it first… not to getting it right… not to adding real perspective to it… not to behaving honorably.

The really sad part of the Variety stuff was that it was so pained a wail… “just be less mean, Nikki… please…” And in typical Nikki fashion, she breaks the confidences of what any sane person knows was a confidential business meeting to slam the authors to the ground.

They have already conceded the ground to her. And now, you seem to be doing the same.

Sad.

[Christian Toto]

I respect Bart ... met him a few years back and he couldn't have been nicer. But his blog ... yikes. Doesn't provide enough links, doesn't respond to people who leave comments, etc. Maybe he feels the need to blog as opposed to really wanting to blog.

Bloggers must cut through the chatter to be heard, thus the barbaric behavior. It's like news outlets covering Britney and co. It's a way to get people's attention. With more and more content out there, bloggers must somehow get noticed.

Doesn't make it right, though! And civility should prevail.

[Dan]

"Giving contributors the opportunity to tee-off on subjects under the cloak of anonymity is the part of this deal that doesn't seem fair to me."

Well, Michael, that depends on your perspective. I'm sometimes a bit...bracing with our host, but then again, I'd like to think my remarks offer him a viewpoint or a take on the facts that he hadn't considered. Granted, the Internet is full of crackpots and idiots, and one has to sort the wheat from the chaff (and also accept that one might be the chaff from the writer's perspective), but really, blog comments are just a method of feedback. Human beings have been using anonymous methods of communication to slander each other since the dawn of writing. If we don't like it, we can just ignore it.

[vesna]

Photos are fantastic!
Just gorgeous, I’m impressed!
Greetings from Sweden ..............

[LA Woman]

Sounds to me like you're afraid you'll soon be obsolete. I'm sure that is what motivated Bart to call for this hit piece. Your medium is dying Patrick. You should prepare to face that.

[Eric Hughes]

There is a story published today in VARIETY :

WGA Levies Suit Gets Messy, in which the journalist Dave McNary relates what happened yesterday at a hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court on the lawsuits against the Writers Guild, Screen Actors Guild and Directors Guild.

A story written by a journalist based not on sources but on his attendance at the court hearing.

When the L.A.WEEKLY commissioned, from former L.A. TIMES journalist and author of FATAL SUBTRACTION and THE LAST MOGUL Dennis McDougal, a story on so-called foreign levies, Nikki Finke, who writes a column for the WEEKLY, went to the editor warning that if I were McDougal’s source she better kill the story.

McDougal has certainly proven over the years that he can take care of himself.

What real journalist would go to the extreme Finke did, to harm another journalist, and to suppress the publication of a story?

Consider that the story, which impacts on every writer, lyricist, performer, director, composer, and other creatives in the business Finke covers, is a story that Finke has never gone near.

And that the lawyer, who filed all three foreign levies lawsuits, against the Screen Actors Guild, Directors Guild, and Writers Guild, is Finke’s own lawyer, representing her in her own private lawsuits.

In attempting to get the story killed, more than embarrassing herself, Ms. Masters, did Finke not disgrace herself?

Eric Hughes

[Nikki Finke]

To Eric Hughes:
Someone has given you very incorrect information. Please check with LA Weekly Deputy Editor Jill Stewart and former Deputy Editor Joe Donnelly and yes Dennis McDougal himself. It's true the editors asked if I had any objection to Dennis McDougal writing about the WGA. I had none. I was delighted he'd be tackling this difficult subject. Dennis and I not only were colleagues at the Los Angeles Times together, but we have remained supportive friends all these years. As for the foreign levies story, I can't cover everything. I'm only one person. But it does sound like I need to get up to speed on this story. I've left a msg for you. Please get in touch with me by phone or email ASAP. Thanks, Nikki