With print news dying faster and faster each day, many publications are implementing pay-walls on to their Web sites, attempting to salvage dwindling profits.
For Variety, it seems their new pay-wall (which began on December 10th, 2009) is not panning out that way. To add insult to injury, “Jay Penske-owned Deadline/Hollywood has poached Variety’s biggest breaking news hound, Mike Fleming, to run the new Deadline/New York.” [Thompson on Hollywood]
It’s hard to blame Fleming, seeing as news sites like Deadline Hollywood appear (more and more each day) to be the future, while traditional print publications like Variety (which has been around for 104 years) represent the past.
But what does this mean for film journalism, or rather journalism in general?
As The Playlist points out, via Thompson, “Fleming is not a blogger, but a newsman. Finke’s method of mudslinging-TOLDJA-post-it-and-edit-it-later reporting may not jive with Fleming whose network of sources trust him not to hang them out dry.”
Post it and edit later. That’s about right. And this writer can’t say much better for The Film Stage – news reports come and go with what feels like the speed of light. Spiderman 4 is delayed but John Malkovich confirmed he’ll play Vulture in the film. Refresh and refresh and refresh. Post this and post that. Not daily, but hourly. Finke gets something wrong at 4 p.m. that turns out right at 6. Or the other way around.
Fleming has been working for Variety 20 years as of this month.
Not anymore.
What do you think about Variety? Can it survive this downturn?