Netflix sends journalists on pricey trips
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
> The Washington Post’s policy is not to accept any material gifts from news sources or coverage subjects.
But I bet they're more than willing to accept what is essentially a free vacation on company time.
Given that: I'm getting tired of Netflix's concept of producing a lot of crappy shows for regional markets - if I'd like to have that, I can go to my public broadcaster too for the mandatory fee I have to pay anyways... (and they also realized by now that they have to do something for non-retirees). For nice and "special" movies, buying a DVD is most often the only sensible option. Or some stream somewhere... (which are not good at special things either)
I think it's great to see stuff not all coming out of Hollywood.
It’s called “the resistance banker”
As someone who was sent to a lot of these trips, they're not that great most of the time. I can't comment on Netflix, but it's usually a short stay at a fancy place with all the nice amenities, but the time spent travelling and listening to the sales pitches isn't worth it.
I pity the journo that would be bought that easily.
I think FB is actively harmful to the internet but all we have to do to weaken it is prevent any further acquisitions. Much of the reign them in stuff is misguided.
Mutual funds appear faceless and have an effect, knowing the owner must have much more.
Is the author asserting that mutual funds are preventing air travel from being even cheaper than it already is, which is the cheapest it has ever been in the history of aviation?
This is, of course, excepting approximately six months post-9/11 and the winter holiday season post-financial crisis when the industry was on the verge of collapse and nearly every carrier operated at a loss temporarily both times just to keep people in seats. Except for that brief period in time airline travel is the cheapest it has ever been in the history of aviation.
I do think Netflix has made a lot of good (and less good) content. But that statement is simply untrue
https://oscar.go.com/news/oscar-news/best-actress-2018-franc...
but netflix has some of the best standup comedies ever and that sandra bullock movie wasn't too bad.
even though it's scorcese, i am not interested in irishman at all...
This is a common sentiment on the internet but it seems pretty clear that regardless of what people say they like they do go see these endless sequels en masse and they're (for the most part) hugely successful.
The reason Netflix doesn't do that to the same extent probably more has to do with the fact that it's a relatively young company who simply doesn't own old IPs to remake and reboot so it's cheaper to make new things. Look at Stranger Things for instance, they seem fine milking it.
ie, this is your teen learns about sex movie, this is your young man discover super power movie, this is your boy meets girl movie, etc.
I'm not sure if it's a fair criticism, since Netflix seems to have the same amount of variety as non-Netflix cinema has, but hey, everyone is entitled to an opinion.
Very few netflix exclusives break out of that and when you find one that does, it just so happens they picked it up from somewhere else!
But yeah, 8/mo, hard to complain. The shows they are throwing out are still good as are the hollywood movies/shows :)
My wife won the Netflix PR account for our market for the agency she worked for.
They moved into their office and built an elaborate viewing room — and their retainer came in at multiples of other high end clients.
And yeah, constant trips for entertainment journos.
One of the more aggressive and savvy companies when it comes to PR. In my experience that signals strong management.
Press junkets are notorious for being rapid-fire grinds that studios consider a necessary evil. I guess the case could be made that by making it a more pleasant experience (and also granting journalists paid set visits is mentioned?) could give them an advantage among critics/voters? Probably but that's the business, just like this WaPo article was probably pitched by a competitor PR firm.
To me actions like what Netflix did are nothing more than another form of marketing. You either buy what they are selling or you don't.
This sounds like it helps critics covering films be industry insiders with closer access to the filmmakers/actors which makes for more interesting content which they wouldn't have otherwise. Which helps them with the critiquing when it goes wrong or right.
Ensuring high quality coverage (or any coverage) for an event featuring != ensuring positive reviews
HN needs a policy to disallow completely paywalled links.
That's akin posting a photo of a printed magazine cover and suggesting to discuss a terribly interesting article on page 17. It works only for a limited audience that comprises magazine subscribers and those willing to make a trip to the library, borrow from a friend, etc. That's counterproductive and exclusionary. It also doesn't age well.
- if like me you only stumble on the website through news aggregators like this one you probably won't have any issues to get to the article without paying,
- if on the other hand you read enough articles to hit the hard paywall then clearly you get something out of this particular website and it's not unreasonable for them to ask for you to pay for it IMO.
So I really think it's fine to post these types of articles on HN.
99.9% of the time I land on these sites is from a HN link. Most of the time I don’t find the first paragraph interesting enough to keep reading and close it. I get hit by those paywalls a lot.
We are losing the concept of the open web, and I thought HN would be the community that would understand the problem.
The complaints about paywalled articles are warranted, and we should take a stance about it whether the debate itself is viewed as off-topic or not. It's turned into a form of protest, at this point.
> Are paywalls ok?
> It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds.
> In comments, it's ok to ask how to read an article and to help other users do so. But please don't post complaints about paywalls. Those are off topic.
The same dev on GitHub has an equivalent for Chrome as well.
The stance and rule is that they're ok and you should not comment to complain about them. You're breaking it.
> In comments, it's ok to ask how to read an article and to help other users do so. But please don't post complaints about paywalls. Those are off topic.
----
> The stance and rule is that they're ok and you should not comment to complain about them. You're breaking it.
No, it's not, it's only not to complain about them. The OP asked a question (which, admittedly, could have been answered with some searching, but regardless...) and then presented what they thought was a reasonable answer to the (not actually) unanswered question.
(paywall)