Disney, chuffed about one of those "fair share" stories the media likes to run these days that placed them in the spotlight., has decided to blackout the LA Times from all future pre-screenings of their films.
As expected, the newspaper media is freaking out over this, calling it 'an assault on journalism' and other nonesuch, none of which is going to matter all that much to the movie going public.
And none of it is going to matter.
While I respect the original news piece, and agree that corporate welfare of the type presented within the piece is a bad thing, I also think that newspapers (and especially, their opinion writers and editorial boards) had a big hand in making these deals happen and, as such, lose a lot of credibility when crying crocodile tears over the "taxpayers" getting hosed.
In every city, some of the biggest cheerleaders for corporate tax breaks are progressive opinion columnists and editorial boards. In Houston, the Chronicle has supported several public give-aways including the building of four professional sports stadiums, a full court press in favor of a wasteful light-rail system who's only role is to subsidize developers, many of whom developed in a flood zone, tax abatements to a downtown hotel (that the Mayor endorsed on city letterhead) and was all-in on creating the TIRZ system that it now opposes.
It's the same across every city, where breathless anonymous writers spent decades telling readers that these amenities were necessary to provide a city with a certain amount of world-classiness. It's not clear what this world-classiness would provide in terms of benefits to the actual citizenry of course, but it would provide the Editorial Board and opinion writers with ample opportunity to attend cocktail parties. The Taxpayer be damned.
But the recent wave of political populism has led to a renaissance in the newspaper's care for the little guy. Provided, of course, the interests of the taxpayer is understood to mean the fullness of the coffers of the city, county, State and Federal governments and not the pockets of the taxpayer themselves.
That's why, over the years, I've been such a supporter (and, the creator) of #ShutterTheEdBoard. I think the ancient tradition of the unsigned editorial is one that needs to fade into the dustbin of history. I feel the same way about political opinion writers, who take up valuable resources from the actual hard news reporting that actually means something. Or at least it used to before the rise of Politifarce and news "analysis" which is really just opinion hiding as hard news.
Despite all of my pleading, I think the newspapers are about to figure out just how little attention is paid to the opinion side of their operation through this movie-review snub. Because most people don't read a review to determine whether or not they want to see a movie. They watch the preview trailer and it either piques their interest or it doesn't. This is why the Oscar "best picture" nominee's are typically movies that you've never heard of while the ones you actually like are relegated to the "commercial break" awards.
It's the same with restaurant critics, many of whom only visit certain restaurants and, in many cases, seem to have iron palates that only respond to an abundance of salt and foams. (As a matter of fact, I blame restaurant critics for cursing us with the scourge of foam on foods, which had all of the taste and texture of spit.)
The point is that there's very little reason for newspapers to continue to employ anyone on the opinion side when it's being done better, faster, more often, and usually for free on-line.
If newspapers want to survive (something I think is very unlikely) they would do themselves well to drop the opinion-laden bloat and focus on very local hard news of the type you find in the LA Times piece linked above. Just admit that your opinions were crap, and give us the straight juice.
This will do two things: It will lower overhead in an industry that's as bloated as they come, and it will free up the news gathering organization to report the truth, even if it runs counter to the political views of the editorial staff.
In keeping with the times: Make Newspapers Great Again. It really would be addition by subtraction in this case.
Unless you like foam, and mother!
In which case you should probably go and get some help.
