I usually like Peter Bart. I watch him every week on AMC’s Sunday Morning Shoot-out. He’s a smart guy who has been in the business for a long time. He’s a man who should be respected. So I’m always shocked to read his thoughts on movie websites. His latest rant on the state of movie blogs is unbelievably ignorant.
Bart is usually a very intelligent industry voice but today he has been reduced to a cranky old man who is unwilling to let go of the way things use to be. The industry must change, or die (as was/is evident with the music industry). Movie studios to embrace professional bloggers is a step in the right direction.
Bart writes:
This, in turn, encourages some bloggers to wallow in non-stop rants as a form of self-promotion. Living dangerously is sweet revenge, they seem to be saying. To be sure, if a piece gets posted that proves instantly incorrect, or that places them in legal jeopardy, they can simply pull it down and pretend nothing happened.
In fact, Variety sometimes steals from the same blogs and movie news websites they often bash. Last January Variety stole a whole story from CHUD, without credit. If that wasn’t enough, they even reprinted some of CHUD’s original content as their own. Where was the fact checking then? And what did Variety do to that article? They didn’t pull it down, they pretended nothing happened and left it up. Peter, what is worse?
Earlier today we reported that Disney would release Pirates 3 one day earlier. Not only were we the first website to report this news (a full 4 hours before Variety), but our story was accurate and fact checked. I can’t say the same for Variety’s story which contains a huge innacuracy. Variety writes:
Summer tentpole “Shrek the Third,” by contrast, isn’t budging from its opening on Friday, May 18.
WRONG. As we first reported, DreamWorks is releasing Shrek the Third at 10:00pm on Thursday May 17th in the larger markets. This fact can be substantiated in any movie ticket search online (movietickets.com, fandango.com) or with the studios. So let’s get this right: An online movie blog not only beat Variety to the story, but also provided more accurate information (backed up with fact checking). We actually sat on the story for a couple hours while we obtained confirmation from the studios. But Bart paints most movie blogs as reckless and inaccurate. Peter does not understand that we build our audiences out of integrity. People read blogs for the opinionated views. For a no holds barred viewpoint on the current events. Our audience will leave the minute when we sell them out or start becoming inaccurate and irrelevant.
Bart writes:
Publicists increasingly court them, but are infuriated by the bloggers’ disdain for the rules of engagement (ignoring fact-checking and review dates, for example).
Variety was able to post their Spider-Man 3 review on April 26th. /Film is an international movie news blog, and we were unable to post our review until the day of release, May 5th 2007. This is not a freak example, this happens week after week. We are punished for being online media. And sure, some blogs post reviews early, but usually not as early as print sources. Our local THA Publicists have told us that if we break a release date, we will be banned. And so we, like all other accredited movie bloggers, always hold our reviews until the date of release.
Bart writes:
While the blogosphere has its share of heroes, it’s also populated by pseudo-journalists who have never done a fact check or apologized to a public figure whose career may have been damaged by their bizarre rants.
Today alone I was in contact with two studios and 3 publicists to confirm facts for news stories. Sure, may-be there are some bad eggs, but I’m sure the same thing could be said of print media. Look at Earl Dittman and the countless other studio plants. It seems to me that Peter Bart is trying to lump the majority of accredited bloggers in with the everyday blogger.com folk who find the time to post reviews of test screenings and unconfirmed rumors.
Bart seemingly gloats that Bloggers aren’t protected under the first ammendment because they are not “true journalists.” Mr. Bart, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Bart writes:
Clearly, the landscape is crowded and confusing, but decisions have to be made: To whom do you grant interviews and credentials?
I think for once Bart is asking the relevant question. Here is the answer: Studios are interested in coverage and reaching a big audience/readership. If a blog can provide that readership/audience, the studio will reach out to them - like they have to us. If a blog breaks the release date on a review, their media accreditation will be suspended. This has happened in the past, and will happen in the future. But this brings us to the real reason behind Bart’s rant: Readership.
We tried to do a little fact checking and contacted Variety concerning their readership numbers but the editor we talked to was on deadline and didn’t have access to the circulation numbers. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, Daily Variety’s weekday circulation was 35,716 in 2001. In just four short years, their readership dropped to 31,622 (2005). I could only assume that the numbers have further plummeted.
While our daily readership numbers might not be in the millions, that doesn’t matter because we know how to promote. Most of our articles are read by a couple thousand readers, but every week something finds its way around the internet. One of my friends once wrote an article that had almost 250,000 readers. Variety can only dream of reaching so many people.
Even the biggest newspapers like The New York Times only have a circulation of around 1 million copies. Some of those copies are freebies at hotels. Others are subscription copies that never get read. I wonder, out of all the newspapers delivered, how many actually get read? Out of that number, how many people do you think read the Arts section? The movie area of that section? How many people read one single movie article in that area? What is the readership of one article? And one could also ask, how many Hollywood offices/suits subscribe to Variety but never read it? What is the readership of one of their articles?
Obviously we’re not as big as the Times, and we never will be, but we also don’t need to be. We are providing content to a targeted demographic of people who are interested in movies. And sometimes, not often, but sometimes, our articles will reach wider than the Times. This scares Bart and people of his generation. Because what right do we have to reach so many people. And the movie studios don’t care about who, how, why or where - they just want to reach their demo.
And according to the Alexa.com, an online media metrics site (graph posted below), Variety.com’s readership is are also in a free fall (it appears they are getting 50% less hits than only a few months ago). And that other graph, the brownish-red line, that’s a little blog. Little blogs like Slashfilm.com and FirstShowing.net went from next to nothing and are now competing with Variety (at least in terms of online hits). I don’t mean to “wallow in non-stop rants as a form of self-promotion”. /Film is just one of many blogs that are now competing with Variety in the online movie news landscape. And a huge movie site like Ain’t it Cool News dwarfs both us and the industry trade magazine website in all comparisons. But we don’t ever need to be that huge.
May-be Peter Bart is just afraid of the competition? Or may-be he wrote the article as link bait, hoping that the movie bloggospghere would angerly respond. If so, I’m sure he’ll get the website hits he so desperately needs.
Around the Blogosphere:
FirstShowing.net: Variety Attacks Bloggers; Lies And Rants About Losing Business
Ian Schafer: “The only decision to make is whether or not to evolve along with your consumers.”
Anne Thompson @ Variety.com: Blogs reshaping film coverage
May 8th, 2007 at 12:26 am
Here here! Well said Peter.
May 8th, 2007 at 4:00 am
I don’t find the article as biased as you make it out to be. A blog is just another means of online publication and Peter Bart makes a typical mistake of associating it with the majority of people that are using it. But what he says is essentially true.
I mean there’s a whole lot of people out there who write whatever they want, ripping off the trade mags, without even mentioning their source. And that’s in a good post. When faced with writing anything remotely original or informative by themselves they’ ll just put out crap. So please, don’t side with them. The net needs reputable sources and has proved as a whole that it will read and believe everything. Sure there are people intelligent and informed enough to be able to tell, over a period of time, that you fact check your stories, but these are the minority.
A good journalist is a good journalist and an amateur (or worse) an amateur (or worse). These are the sides we all have to choose from, and not from a 2-column or 4-column print format.
May 8th, 2007 at 9:22 am
Nice write up Peter. Variety is obviously running scared…
Thank you,
http://DVDRentalForums.com
May 8th, 2007 at 9:54 am
cheaplog,
I agree with your points however I read over 300 RSS feeds a day. You wouldn’t believe how many newspapers and print sources copy (sometimes whole sentences) from Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. This problem is not limited to bloggers. For Bart to lump all bloggers as a whole into this is a huge discrimitory problem. Also, I would tend to believe that most if not all professional bloggers (blog for a living or at least pay and are accredited) do not fall into his categories. We need to follow even stricter rules than he does (in terms of posting reviews until the release date and such) or we get banned from studio screenings.
May 8th, 2007 at 10:44 am
looking at that first quote you mention (and not reading anything else, can’t be bothered) i would agree with him completely - there’s lots of issues with how blogging is done, and hey i even feel odd about how people seem to go to the internet in a rather unquestioning fashion and place people on pedestal all too easily, as though it’s a disease that internet users regularly acquire simply by hanging around on it for long enough - things shift when the shoe’s on the other foot and you contribute, the issues shift and you see how oddly people can behave towards one another and the issues they’re intending to communicate about.
decent bloggers realise they’re just another person who’s interested in films, as (in the end) there’s something potentially odd-but-useful about so much discussion with regards something that’s intended to be primarily about watching films first and foremost - some bloggers think everyone and anyone who blogs for long enough and shouts loudly, creates a fuss and dances around the issues to avoid being identified as having a solid opinion (different from discussing things from potential angles) shoud be paid to do it
professionally.
i do of course, realist there’s some pro bloggers who are simply internet-based writers who also work in-print and with any field there are people doing it for free who might make the jump to ‘pro’ and there are those already ‘pro’ who can be outclassed by those still working on an amateur basis. also, i think there’s an different kind of message within this alternative medium, so mistakes work on a different level; greater or small, i don’t know - there’s no one general answer i would guess to that as you can both have a larger and a smaller impact online.
May 8th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
Hi, Peter. Although we’re doing better than your post suggests (April uniques and page views up about 25% from last year), you make some good points. (CHUD? Ugh.) And it’s no secret that all of MSM is trying to figure out how to respond to a world where readers and advertisers are looking online. And why wouldn’t they? It’s not like print carries some kind of moral superiority; for a long time, it was the most effective means of publication. Now there’s a faster one and everyone is trying to figure out how to adjust accordingly.
However (as other commenters have pointed out), I think it’s unfair to say that Peter “paints all movie blogs as reckless and inaccurate.†His topic sentence refects the column:The rise of blogdom is positive/its care and feeding causes static.
And it does. If you talk to studio publicists, you know. It’s (to quote Bart) “put the blogosphere in a state of permanent tension, under assault in some areas yet boasting about its clout in others.â€
Having said that, I don’t think the tension is permanent. Eventually, these issues will seem quaint. But in the meantime, everyone’s trying to figure it out — bloggers included.
Case in point: For an imaginary ombudsman, Gawker’s Byron “Dan†Worthington III made some good points yesterday in his final post.
“A host of new and different companies will choose to hock their wares on Gawker, and the editors’ ability to restrain them-selves from making fun of those ads will be ever more compromised. …The transition of newspapers’ center of gravity to the Web, crucial to the future of that industry, is making notable progress. But the steady push to completely integrate print and online news operations to support the rapidly expanding Web site raises questions about what will constitute top-quality journalism in the online world of deadlines every minute. And as most of real news organizations’ content appears on the Web, the need for a Gawker, or any website that provides little in the way of original material apart from cut-and-paste IM sessions from a group of editors who obviously can’t stand each other, will lessen.â€
– Dana Harris
Editor, Variety.com
May 8th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
What I meant to say is that you replying as a blogger, and not as an independent journalist is wrong. Bart would be saying the same things about “onliners” ten years ago, TIME went with “fanboys” recently. These publications have gained our respect in general though, and understandably feel threatened by people prepared to blog long enough and shout loudly enough as logboy says.
James Berardinelli posted his reviews to newsgroups but nobody calls him a “newsgrouper”, people have been using mailing lists, forums, etc. for many many years and I haven’t heard of similar terms. Writing for a newspaper doesn’t make you a good journalist as mentioned. It’s quality control that Variety essentially advertises and let them do so, I say. And let everyone else be responsible for what they write. Using a blog doesn’t make them any better or worse.
May 8th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
Dana,
The only third party website metrics we have is Alexa, and according to them Variety.com’s hits have gone down almost 50% since December 2006. If you look at the long view you will see a very steady decline in hits. I know, Alexa is not 100% accurate, but its a very good broad indication.
Bart’s thoughts on bloggers have been well documented, and they are far from positive. He takes potshots at us any chance he can get.
He focused his attack on the professional and accredited bloggers that have access to interviews and screenings. We blog for our livelihood, and take our jobs very seriously. I have met bloggers who have not followed the rules and posted reviews early which resulted in them being banned. We are ruled under stronger rules than print publications. We don’t even have the ability to post a review before the date of release.
Yesterday Paramount took down a big movie news website for posting set video of Iron Man. Their lawyers sent a DMCA notice to the site’s web hosting company, and the whole server was taken down. The best part: the footage did not violate any copyrights. It was perfectly legal to post, as much as the photos you find in the supermarket rags. Would the studio pull such scare tactics on a print publication? No.
We are still treated as second class citizens. Studio publicists tell us that we need to cover their crappy films in order to be invited to the big show. And some studios have limited us to screening films only a day before release. The picture Bart paints of the studio publicists being afraid of the bloggers can not be further from the truth.
And where is Bart? Why doesn’t he respond?
Also, You acknowledge the CHUD incident but I still don’t see a retraction on that story.
May 9th, 2007 at 7:25 am
Hi, Peter –
Re: traffic, I wish any December was reflective of our traffic overall — it never is. Oscar season, big reviews, etc. make it a peak time every year, which is why I wanted to point out the year-to-year-difference. Nonetheless, do we want to see our traffic go up? Of course — who doesn’t?
As for Bart, I know he’s written about bloggers before, but his take on them has evolved (along with the rest of the world’s). And in his latest column, I don’t see the potshots. As I said before, he’s commenting on the tension that exists. The publicists don’t know what to do about bloggers — and they are scared. Terrified. (And I quote: “We are freaking out.”)
A couple of years ago, when blogging was still dismissed by the MSM as the terrain of the weird, that’s when they weren’t scared. Fine, they’ll play nice-nice with AICN, but that’s it. Now it’s their worst nightmare because the world is suddenly filled with AICNs. And sure, everyone’s a critic, but many of these critics carry real clout — some as much as the “established” outlets. And can you imagine the workload? It’s like Variety has metastasized into 100 would-be Todd McCarthys and Michael Flemings, with new ones forming every day. And these new film writers have the ability to post immediately, without the formal boundaries of paper media. If I were a studio publicist having to wrangle this brave new world for the Alan Horns and Amy Pascals, I’d never stop throwing up. (One of the many, many reasons why I’m not.)
As I said: Eventually, this will all seem quaint. The studios will figure out how to make peace with and/or exercise some control over the blogs (their goal, after all) and they’ll figure out a pecking order. (Obviously, access and graceful treatment are not a pr given for any writer. The more readers you have, the nicer they are. And if variety.com posted that Iron Man footage, you bet we’d have their lawyers on our asses. Our lawyers, too.)
As for why Bart doesn’t respond — I don’t think he’s ever responded to anyone’s comments on his columns. He figures he’s said his piece. (And as you might have noticed, he never objects to getting under someone’s skin.) I’m responding because, as someone who has lived and breathed variety.com since I took the job three months ago, I wanted to say my piece. Thanks for providing me with an outlet.
Dana Harris
Editor, Variety.com
May 9th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
Dana,
The Long Tail allows for an unlimited amount of content sources. That is the future. But the key to the Long Tail is that it is a tail. Most of the content based sites will not have enough traffic to warrent studio involvement (at least in terms of junkets, screenings, interviews… etc). And much of this new Long Tailed world is about the nitche. So it’s not like every blog site is interested in the whole world, but only a select part.
You are right, the studios will adapt, and grow - but I still don’t see that in Bart’s column.
Bart makes a point to say how when bloggers are wrong they just delete the post and move on: “To be sure, if a piece gets posted that proves instantly incorrect, or that places them in legal jeopardy, they can simply pull it down and pretend nothing happened.”
You have still not adressed the Chud situation. Bart is making a broad view of the bloggosphere in comparison to the print world. But it seems to me that the print world also publishes a huge amount of errors (the shrek release was just one that I saw on the date of this posting) without recall. And the Chud deal is also something Bart likes to imagine happens only in the blog world.
I thank you for responding. Unlike Bart, you are up for the challenge of a dabate, and that is to be respected.