Oct 06 2009
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“ For years, if a studio wanted a story on page 1 of Daily Variety, its publicists would try to give it to a reporter by 1 P.M., and then spend the afternoon managing whatever stories other reporters had heard at lunch: having off-the-record conversations about whether the paper could report that, say, Brad Pitt was “attached” to a new film (meaning that he’d agreed to star in it) or merely “circling” it (meaning that his agent wanted him to sign—or perhaps wanted another studio to think that he was about to sign, so as to incite a bidding war). A kind of gentleman’s agreement prevailed, reinforced, perhaps, by the fact that Variety—according to its former publisher Charlie Koones—got roughly fifty per cent of its revenue from “For Your Consideration” ads taken out by studios and networks during awards season.
— A passage from the New Yorker article this week on Nikki Finke that gives a good glimpse into how journalism in Hollywood works— along with some other jawdropping tidbits that would befuddle journalists covering other business industries. Let me just say that this ‘Hollywood journalism’ is unlike any other type of journalism I’ve encountered.
