Variety editor Peter Bart had a lengthy piece about the rise of bloggers:
While just about everyone agrees that the rise of blogdom is a positive force, the care and feeding of bloggers still causes a surprising degree of static.
Publicists increasingly court them, but are infuriated by the bloggers' disdain for the rules of engagement (ignoring fact-checking and review dates, for example). Movie stars smile at them at premieres, yet are angered by their incivility. Corporations and major institutions hold firm to their "mainstream press only" policies, yet even the United Nations has finally given credentials to a lone blogger (Matthew Lee).
Kevin and I waded into the shallow end of the blogsphere fifteen months ago. We've learned a few things since:
1) Studio management gets ticked at you, even when you A) clear what you write with a producer or B) write something that's already known. (This is sometimes known as "giving them an excuse.")
2) The Mainstream press can occasionally get irritated with you.
3) People who read your blog get engraged at you because you, well, come off like a 14-karat prick (in their opinion). And they're happy to tell you so.
Still in all, blogging is fine fun, no?
(And VARIETY scribe Anne Thompson has an article about how the blogs have changed the way Hollywood deals with publicity for their people and product. It's also fine.)
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4 comments:
I love the edge Bloggers have over studio big shots. Since blogging is not conventional media -- it makes it almost impossible to control. This must drive the big shots nuts because they're use to controlling information. Now, a Blogger can rag on you or your overrated movie -- and you can't even get him fired.
So, the mainstream press gets irritated. Who cares.
So, people get enraged at you? They can solve that little problem by clicking off and not coming back.
Blogging has become another thorn in Hollywood's side, and that gives me no end of delight.
It's also changed the political landscape and irritated the Mainstream Media. Which also delights.
The question arises though... am I talking to Steve Hulett my friendly union rep, or Steve Hulett, intrepid reporter?
I'm not making an accusation, nor have I ever said anything to you in confidence that has found its way to this blog.
But if you're saying sometimes stuff you write gets complained on by management not because you're too darn librul or pro union, but because of questions of what's public knowlege or cleared via a producer...
Well then there's an unexamined aspect to being a blogger: employees might clam up while you're wandering the halls.
Gotta keep that Cone of Silence in working order, y'know?
-Anoymous Silent Conehead.
I've said this before, I'll say it again:
Proprietary info = off-limits.
Workplace issues (overtime, employee fears and gripes, labor issues, etc.) = not off limits.
I never reveal names or identities. Never reveal movie plot points (and hardly ever know them.)
Management still gets mad here and there. Selected employees often aren't happy.
You write a blog on the internets, somebody somewhere thinks you're a toad. No matter how bland and inoffensive you attempt to be.
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