The changing face of Hollywood publications
It’s a new era for the competitive world of Variety, TheWrap, Deadline and the Hollywood Report, one in which events, education, video streaming and #MeToo play bigger and bigger roles. I spoke about these changes with Sharon Waxman, CEO and founder of TheWrap, at her offices in Santa Monica, California.
Q. TV has become a much bigger player than movies for the Hollywood press in recent years. Can you explain that evolution?
Waxman: TV production has ballooned with the rise of Netflix and other streaming services like Amazon Studios and Hulu. So there's a vastly increased amount of content to cover if you are an industry-facing publication, or even if you are consumer-facing.
At the same time, there is an overarching narrative about the changes to consumer behavior led by the streaming giants, and the subsequent shifts in the power structure in the entertainment industry. Meanwhile, movies have become a much tougher business overall, with a preponderance of those tied to superhero storytelling.
Q. There's more content being produced than ever before. How do you keep track of the casting, production, creation and finances of so many productions? How do marketers keep so many works in front of eyeballs?
Waxman: Hustle.
And hustle.
Q. Where do you think your sector will be in five years? How will the revenue mix and the content change?
Waxman: I'm not sure if by "my sector" you mean digital media or [business-to-business] media or entertainment.
Entertainment will continue to go through major upheaval, and a scrambling of the established order is underway. The studio system is over, as I've written elsewhere. Both signal an end to the major studio system that has reigned for more than 50 years, replaced by a mix of distribution giants.
Digital media has been decimated by Facebook and Google, though sites like ours whose business model relies on B-to-B revenue have been partially protected. We are all seeing revenue sucked away by Facebook, and have seen our advertisers migrate there and to Google. In that case, we get pennies on the dollar for CPMs. This is a shortsighted and greedy strategy by Facebook. They need to open their business model to allow legitimate news partners to share in the revenue.
That said, every company in this sector needs to diversify. That's what we've done and are continuing to do, moving aggressively into the events space and building new products that we can monetize. Any media company that does not diversify risks extinction.
TheWrap has launched WrapWomen to drive initiatives around women's leadership, is launching a summit for 1,000 women in media and entertainment this fall and continues to grow our thriving Grill franchise, about the convergence of entertainment and technology.
Quick hits
SMALL NEWSROOMS, BIG IDEAS: Chasing a crooked mayor, marking the anniversary of a community-changing storm. Poynter's Kristen Hare on how these news outlets did it.
THE COST OF AN APOLOGY: It may be too high for a freelancer to complain of shoddy treatment, writes Abby Seiff for Columbia Journalism Review. "Our job, in this freelance system, is to stay silent. We protect ourselves with whisper networks of correspondents who quietly tell one another which editors to avoid, what publications to steer clear from. At the end of the day, no one wants to be the one to raise a voice. The stakes are too high; the scales too tipped."
NOPE: The media didn't ignore the border during the Obama administration. I was there, writes John Stanton.
MAKING IT UP: A Pew study says nearly two-thirds of Americans do not believe "news" on social media is true, Poynter's Taylor Blatchford writes.
UNIVISION BUYOUTS: The company wants to cut 15 percent of its editorial salary budget in its Gizmodo Media Group, which includes Deadspin, Jezebel and Splinter. Bloomberg reports that the cuts don't include satire sites The Onion and Clickhole.
WHO REALLY RUNS THE NYT NEWSROOM: That's how Juanita Powell-Brunson was introduced to President Barack Obama at a White House reception in 2016. It's true, too, assistant managing editor Carolyn Ryan says of Powell-Brunson, the ready-at-all-hours deputy director of newsroom operations. Ryan calls her "a master of so many almost invisible acts that make our journalism great," from logistics to getting bulletproof vests and fireproof jackets, to "event planning, political convention mobilization, cake acquisition, flower- and sympathy-note-sending, desk and Diet Coke procuring."
What we're reading
REVERSED: After withering worldwide criticism, President Trump signed an executive order ending his family separation policy — but establishing indefinite internment camps for immigrants and asylum-seekers. The internship camps harken to some of the most shameful periods in U.S. history. Here are at least 14 times this administration had changed its story on the child internment effort, which medical officials called child abuse.
WHY HE'S QUITTING: "I know in my heart that man is good." Those words of Ronald Reagan, says Bush, McCain and Kasich strategist Steve Schmidt, are etched on Reagan's gravestone. Schmidt says Reagan would not recognize a party that "establishes internment camps for babies." "Today the GOP has become a danger to our democracy and values," Schmidt says, and after nearly 30 years in it, he's leaving.
KILLING PUBLIC TRANSIT: Popular light rail and bus route expansions, proven to spur economic growth, ease highway congestion and improve the environment, have been targeted throughout the nation by the Koch Brothers. The well-funded opponents, using sophisticated data on voters and a flood of paid workers, prefer the unproven notion of fleets of driverless cars. The Koch cash has stopped a highly regarded Nashville effort — and want to turn back the clock on public transit in Little Rock, Arkansas, Phoenix, southeast Michigan and central Utah.
'I REFUSE': U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had lied about a transport of separated children (agents said they were a youth soccer team). Flight attendant Hunt Palmquist already had worked two such flights — and wrote that he would never do so again. "I might as well have been a collaborator in their transport," he wrote for the Houston Chronicle. On Wednesday, American Airlines told ICE not to use its flights for such transport. "We have no desire to be associated with separating families, or worse, to profit from it," the airline said. United Airlines followed suit. "We want no part of it," United's CEO said.
On Poynter.org
- The stakes are too high for journalists to fail on basic ethics, writes Poynter's Indira Lakshmanan.
- Good news: It's harder than you think to "deepfake" a video. By Daniel Funke.
- Front pages: What the world sees of Trump's family separation policy. By Taylor Blatchford.
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Got a tip, a link, a suggestion? We’re trying to make this roundup better every day. Please email me at dbeard@poynter.org.
Thank you, Ren LaForme, for editing this.
And have a good Thursday.
