Out-of-It L.A. Times
The L.A. Times Calendar section continues to astonish everyone by running pieces like this one by Mary McNamara about the 1989-styled revolution-of-the-suits against super-expensive big star projects...a story that Slate's Kim Masters covered pretty well on 6.12...ditto Anne Thompson in her Hollywood Reporter column on 6.16.
Running these bringing-up-the-rear articles about about industry trends, ripples and currents that are weeks past the point where they would be truly topical and in synch with the latest turn is exactly why newsprint dailies are losing against new-media outlets. MacNamara delivers some perspective and fresh quotes, but this story's still more than three weeks old. (Apologies for the latest wrongo, writing Maggie instead of the correct Mary McNamara earlier today.)
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on July 8, 2006 at 12:14 PM
comment #1
Steve C says ...
So, let me get this straight: in the New New Journalism, it is verboten to cover a story that has already been done by other outlets even if one is web-based (Slate) and the other written specifically for the industry it covers (H. Reporter).
I almost made this same point a few weeks ago when you thought it boggled the mind that the Times would still want to cover some aspect of the SNAKES ON A PLANE marketing.
The Times is general population daily, most of whose readers do not keep up with these things. I could understand if this had been covered all over the map, but it hasn't been.
Put another way, when Tom Delay went down in flames, was the Times supposed to skip the story because EVERYONE else was covering it?
You then poke further holes in your boat by admitting that the writer brought some perspective and has fresh qoutes. Isn't that what the benefit of having some distance (in terms of time) has for such a late-comer article? Is this trend continuing, was it as pervasive has first reported, are any execs poo-pooing the idea that they are following the trend?
As Sgt Hulka would say, "Lighten up, Francis."
BTW - what does the pic have to do with the thread?
Posted by Steve C at July 8, 2006 3:03 PM