The Old Gray Lady Stoops…to Conquer?
Standards torch-bearer trips on shoelaces, starts forest fire
I was going to make fun of a column in yesterday’s NY Times, but then I realized David Poland already did it. After a cup of coffee, I decided to go ahead and do it anyway. I can’t afford to be choosey, but neither apparently can the NY Times.
If someone would care to read Michael Cieply’s NY Times column about negative anonymous Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull reviews that leaked Thursday morning and then come back and tell me what business something like this has in the supposed Paper of Record, I’d love to hear it.
Frankly, it’s the kind of piece you’d expect to find in a blog not unlike LiC. There is little in the way of actual reporting. Cieply called Spielberg’s publicist Marvin Levy and got a couple of one line quotes that don’t illuminate or offer any new information and then he talked to Tim Ryan, the senior editor at Rotten Tomatoes about when legitimate reviews of the film are likely to first appear. That’s it. The rest I could’ve done myself if I’d cared to think thing about such a thing for longer than two seconds.
The thrust of the column is that Steven Spielberg is notoriously careful about protecting his films before they’re released, that reviews were starting to leak out anyway and that this might “thwart a truly huge box office haul.” To this he tosses in a little speculation about how an exhibitor (one of the reviewers claimed to have seen it at an exhibitor screening) might want to talk down a certain movie so he or she could get a sweeter deal on it.
So, the new standard for what’s ‘fit to print’ at the NY Times is now a couple of anonymous reviews (a third came in later that was more positive) on Ain’t it Cool News, a couple of quotes and a little common-knowledge industry background? What the hell?
What’s more, by manufacturing this ’story’ and publishing it in the nation’s most highly regarded newspaper, what began as simple Internet background noise has become a legitimate news item. A non-story has been elevated to the level of actual news and the journalistic standards of a great newspaper have been lowered to the level of Internet chatter.
At a time when the traditional news media finds its influence sinking like a torpedoed ship, it’s sad to see the first things they jettison overboard are their life vests - the very standards that keep them above the Internet in the first place.
Filed under: Opinion
“A non-story has been elevated to the level of actual news and the journalistic standards of a great newspaper have been lowered to the level of Internet chatter.”
This constitutes shoddy reportage whether in print or online. Manufacturing any story from flimsy and unreliable sources represents low journalistic standards. But readers at least are more skeptical about online speculations as opposed to reporting found in a paper of record.
Cieply didn’t happen to change his name from Stephen Glass.
That’s the shocking thing to me, that this is a well respected paper. I don’t claim to provide better, but no one is expecting me to.
Craig, I think you’re very careful to qualify the limitations of any sources you draw upon for your own commentaries and speculations.
Well, I doubt people turn to LiC for crack investigative journalism…at least I hope not.
Jeez.
I’ve been looking at the NYT differently since they ran that crazy “article” on John McCain having an affair years and years and years ago.
I mean, I know this is entertainment news, but really. It’s the NEW YORK TIMES. Where is your integrity, NYT?
Well Craig, that’s why I’ve been coming, but now that you’ve disowned crack investigative journalism, I’ll have to go somewhere more respectable. Like AICN.
The last five or six years have not been very good for The New York Times. For scraping the bottom of the barrel, this latest bit is hard to beat, though.
As for the NY Times, they lost me in 2003 when Judith Miller was drumming up war with the help of her pal, Scooter Libby.
Guys, as a New Yorker, I can vouch for the fact that the NY Times has been headed toward being a rag for at least a decade, probably more.
In the 1940’s this was a top notch paper. It’s been going steadily downhill, particularly since the 1980’s. Unfortunately it still has the reputation as being this top paper that commands respect. Bullshit – it’s been a rag for several years now, in all departments – news, arts, etc.
To make a long story short, this comes as no surprise to me. Like I said, the NY Times has been considered a rag by many intelligent New Yorkers for at least a decade.
Not surprising really. Slow news weekend, reporter up against a deadline, and an editor who sees a story on the hottest movie of the summer and thinks “well, at least our click-through rate will be high.”
Whatever.