AOL Asks Us If We Can Tone It Down
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
Hollywood publicists have traditional entertainment media in a tough spot, able to withhold access to "talent" without some sort wink + nod about what the story will be.
Of course many outlets do not kiss ass and still get courted by Hollywood creatives. But they need to establish that voice early on (Perez Hilton, Pink is the New Blog), not do a crazy 180 (What if Entertainment Tonight all of a sudden asked Tom Cruise a truly tough question?).
I think it's important that "big" tech media establish some boundaries early on. Sure TechCrunch gets some easy traffic for this. But that doesn't mean it's not also cool.
I don't see much to praise here. The intentions might have been good, but otherwise it's a waste of space and time for everyone that isn't getting publicity out of the deal.
I'm delighting in the outing of a well-worn Hollywood practice that ideally will not work as well as they try to court the Internets. If any publicist, PR firm, or studio starts to feel even a little self-conscious about massaging a story, i think that's great. And regardless of TC's intention, I think that's a little more likely after today.
I've sent emails along the lines of "X enquired whether their press release sent yesterday was newsworthy" and even "X has asked for [something] because [reason] and I am sure the answer will be no. Please confirm that that is the case" before.
I can perfectly understand TechCrunch's motivations for publishing: "Hey, we're standing up against AOL like we said we would. Now give us more pageviews", but only assume the rest of the chorus of hostility directed towards the carefully worded email emanates from people who don't have to deal with corporate customers on a daily basis, or can afford to tell them to jump off a bridge.
And maybe I'm splitting hairs, but there's a difference between "the client wants to know why you didn't cover this event" and "the client doesn't like the editorial voice used in your coverage please try to change it in the future"
One email from "a Moviefone/AOL Television representative" asking you to tone it down is not the same as "AOL" asking you to tone it down.
It seems like a more appropriate response would have been to email the Moviefone person back with a, "sorry, that's not how we do things here."
To pan a person or company over a request like that seems ridiculous.
- The movie industry is used to getting random articles changed when they don't like them.
- Moviefone doesn't even fact verify these requests before passing them on to journalists. But does word them innocuously enough that they have plausible deniability.
- TechCrunch had many choices of how to handle this. Their chosen strategy is apparently to blow any sign of manipulation public to let the rest of AOL know that they don't want to play these games with TechCrunch.
- I read an article (http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/12/the-source-code/) about a movie that I otherwise wouldn't have read, and found that Hollywood still appears to believe that Microsoft runs tech. As is evidenced by their using Microsoft Tags in their game rather than the industry standard QR codes.
They have a big stick: they can just remove access. Then what is a movie site / news org going to write about?
Then he demands the head of the Moviefone editor-in-chief on a platter for her response to Alexia's article.
http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/16/actually-aol-didnt-ask-us-t...
The ethical thing to do would be to say, with slightly nicer words, "sorry, we don't interfere with TechCrunch, we didn't publish the review, go tell them yourselves."
They didn't threaten them with respect to future access. They didn't demand anything. They weren't rude or antagonizing. They just asked for a change. To me, it now seems like they did exactly what they ought to given how they probably felt.
On the other hand...
I'm an amateur writer (I admit, this is far from a journalist). Sometimes I'm just wrong, or I write something that ends up coming across differently than I expected. I always welcome feedback, even if I disagree with it, or I think it might be driven by some bias. It doesn't mean that I'm going to change it. But without such feedback, I'm not sure I'd ever get better. I guess I'm worried that in your world, journalist would be living in an ivory tower.
This constantly happens. People submit editorials with their opinion about what others wrote. People write-in to journalist all the time - to agree or disagree.
A movie review isn't an objective piece of pure journalism. It's much more of a subjective editorial, and as such, should be open to far more feedback.
off course they are subtle about it, it is so they can deny it later - but the recipient and the sender (and people reading it now) all know wtf is going on and what was being asked
Also, I'd love to know how the presence on staff of someone whose job it is to relay concerns from PR agents to journalists from a separate publication "is just one means we have of ensuring editorial integrity on Moviefone".
Then to quote the letter: I think their issue is just with some of the text. Let me know if you're able to take another look at it and make any edits.
That's a very PC way of saying change the post. They sounded like they expected compliance. They're expectations were wrong.
It sounds like they expected nothing and this was a CYA email, knowing TechCrunch would not comply, but allowing them to say, "We tried."
heh heh
Even though this one release may not be representative of the company as a whole, at least it gives us some reason to believe in TechCrunch's journalistic integrity.
I'm not saying it says something bad about their integrity I'm simply saying it's not really relevant to a discussion about their integrity.
But that doesn't imply that you can take an instance of them not altering their opinion in the face of pressure and infer that they have integrity, because it's possible that they could do the exact same thing out of pure self-interest.
I didn't mean to imply that this was a total affirmation of TechCrunch's journalistic integrity, only that this was a sign that they may have some of it.
The only way TechCrunch seems to have any whiff of integrity is when they do an article that is explicitly about them showing off their integrity.
• TechCrunch knows that they're going to have to throw their readers and anti-AOL bone at some point. There had to be a post like this eventually; they hyped it and everyone expected it. If so this would be a really easy sacrifice to make on that alter. It's so removed from the core AOL that there's very little damage to be done. In fact, a few of these could cover up more serious editorial jiggering, which would probably be done through more discreet channels.
• The Streisand effect is working as a marketing tool. They just created dialog about several of their properties that I'd never heard of (The Source Code, Moviephone). There's nothing sufficiently damning here that I'd not use those services on that basis, thus, I suspect, this is a win-win scenario.
each writer at TC has independence to say what they want, and it is ingrained in the writers there to say whatever you want, so in this case Alexia though 'no this doesn't seem right' and instead of keeping quiet like 95% of other sites, she published it
arrington is famous for this, he has published lawsuits, internal emails after being asked not to, the emails where he is being asked not to - so I don't know why it is now a surprise or conspiracy when TC keeps doing it
tbf, most people at techcrunch couldn't give a fuck if the other AOL blogs or properties are getting traffic
(disc: i worked at tc for 4 years)
The company behind the film obviously got in touch with Moviefone and whinged about the interview. Moviefone were the people who made the connection in the first place so they then relayed the feedback to TechCrunch. Moviefone never played the AOL card, they were acting as the middleman because they were the guys who set up the connection. They just wanted to get 'some sort of information' from TechCrunch, so they could get back to Summit (the film company) and say "TechCrunch said x".
Uncalled for but also unsurprising given its TechCrunch.
Posts like these strengthen my trust in TC. If the article had been silently edited or redacted without anyone noticing, it would not affect my level of trust. But if someone else pointed out the redaction or edits, my level of trust in TC would certainly fall. So an article like this does more benefit than harm as far as my level of trust is concerned.
Dunno if it actually works.
I think we can all agree that's not the typical policy of TechCrunch
It's something people do when they have strong convictions.
[1] http://www.medialens.org/bookshop/guardians_of_power.php
As the old adage goes "Don't believe everything you read."
Whenever I read something like the following:
> "Apparently, the post was not enough of a blowjob for Summit,"
The level of reporting drops to the floor. How is this professional at all? That phrase made me close the tab; TechCrunch has had its fair share of childness, but this is an all time low. Really guys? Really?
Second of all, there are different sides to professionalism. In my opinion, exposing an attempt at perverting editorial integrity is highly professional, and using vulgar language while doing so is very minor peanuts. You have your priorities very skewed.
My wife's very Mormon family has joked with me about far worse subjects, so I don't really have any perspective here. I know people get offended, but I've never really dug into why.
You won't see a baptist joking about anal sex.
Anyway, joke is definitely ruined now :p
In my opinion, professional writing is crafting a good house stylebook and sticking to it. It's not necessary to write like a newspaper on the Internet, although I like that too.
My understanding is that this is the industry jargon covering things like an obscure radio reporter being invited on an all-expenses-paid trip to L.A. to screen an upcoming movie, or a magazine doing a story about a company in the exact issue where the same company buys a two-page advertising spread.
I'm not saying you are wrong to be offended, just pointing out that this seems to be the way "professionals" talk within the media industry.
As a journalist who's spent several years in all kinds of newsrooms, I can assure you that "blowjob" is one of the more kid-friendly words you'll hear in a newsroom. But, that's just blowing off steam in a grinding job with long hours, little pay and a lot of cynicism.
Professionals don't normally take what they say in private to print. I'd argue that they're professionals precisely because they don't drop "blowjobs" in print lightly.