What Has Happened to the World of Movie Reporting?
Has Internet killed the newspaper star?
I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the current state of movie news reporting and conversation.
When I first started RopeofSilicon.com in 2003 there were a handful of sites I felt actually added anything to the world of film. Looking around the Internet now I think there may be only three or four actual websites (not blogs) that continue to give me anything outside of Variety and Hollywood Reporter word-for-word regurgitations, interview transcripts without any depth and the occasional advertorial agenda piece.
Moving onto the world of blogging it is sort of a mixed bag as you get some blogs that just steal content from other sites and post it as their own (I have actually found entire articles of mine other places), blogs using exclamation points as if their Tourettes is entirely uncontrollable or the occasional blog that offers up a little of both along with some engaging original content.
What's a blog and what's a website? Well, that is actually becoming a line that is extremely blurry.
When I started RopeofSilicon I never saw it as a blog. Is it a blog now? Some may say it has become a version of a blog considering items such as shorter posts or trailer notices certainly don't count as articles, but I consider them more as a sticky note on a larger canvas. If you think it's a blog, that doesn't bother me… I certainly am not any kind of expert on anything more than my opinion.
To me blogs are defined as the hot bed of Internet gossip and rumor mongering. Take a little bit of that, add the incessant need for first look images, misspellings and ego-driven mania and you have your typical blog. Throw in passion and you have your genre blog. Throw in hatred and you have your passionate ego-driven spite blog. Like I said, it's a mixed bag.
However, there is a difference. Blogs are supposed to be all of these things. People don't look at blogs for "expert" opinions. Blogs don't look at themselves as experts on anything outside of being huge fans or passionate haters. This is fine. That is what they are there for. They are the shock jocks of the online sphere. They are tabloids with a little bit extra. Love 'em or hate 'em, they have a right to do whatever they want. Don't like 'em? Ignore 'em.
BUT! Yup, there is a but… But we can't just ignore them can we Ms. Hollywood. No, Hollywood has a love/hate relationship with your typical blogger.
"What did they say is going on with The Lovely Bones? Go get 'em!"
We have all witnessed studios shutting down a variety of websites recently. I can think of three of them off the top of my head. Yes, they actually had these sites SHUT DOWN! What happened next? The love. Set visits, exclusive material and so forth. Hollywood can't seem to make up its mind. Guess what though. That's okay. We don't expect Hollywood to do anything more than just do their thing, which is sporadic at best.
However, my curiosity isn't about Hollywood at all. It's about the film media. The people that write about movies as a profession, not as passionate bloggers that have found a career in page views and unique visitors. I am talking about the people that have spent their entire lives studying the art of film and watching every back room B-movie in an effort to sound smarter than the next guy. You know, the folks that everyone used to turn to when the weekend box-office result was a sign of a good movie, not just a good trailer.
Well, as you may have noticed these informed types have started dropping like flies. Just last week Premiere.com let go of their ace critic Glenn Kenny. Industry bloggers such as Anne Thompson, Jeffrey Wells and David Poland weighed in on Kenny's demise. They seem bewildered and frustrated. How can this be happening?
Poland's post almost appears as a notch in the bedpost labeling it "#29". Who was #28 and all those before him/her? I can't remember, but suffice to say the folks that have been writing about movies in the past for major outlets are being picked off and Poland is none-too-happy about it.
So, what happens when the big boys hunker down and turn the "news" from the blogs into actual news?
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