Franklin Avenue

Rantings and Ravings
There's definitely a discussion to be had over the pros and cons of trade journalism. Too bad Luke Ford, who opened up the discussion in the comments section of L.A. Observed, instead went off on a breathtakingly bizarre rant:

Could someone please explain to me how any self-respecting journalist could go to work for a trade publication? You've become a prostitute. You are only allowed to write on stuff that the industry permits to you. You've handed over your manhood at the door and you don't get it back until you leave. Trade papers are all whores. Those who work for them are whores. Trades never do any serious investigation of their industries. They cheerlead. They don't investigate news.

Gimmie a break. Trade reporters at Variety and the Hollywood Reporter cover the TV and film industries in the same vein as their counterparts at the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and (gasp) the Los Angeles Times.

Entertainment journalism may be a bizarre beast, in which relationships are balanced with the need to get the real story (not unlike covering politics). But us hacks in the trades compete with -- and frequently scoop -- the business reporters at the major dailies.

Variety, for example, broke the story that Viacom was purchasing CBS. The paper also uncovered the fact that some film studios were putting their own employees in TV ads, as if they were normal audience members. When most of the press was still going ga-ga over ABC's "Who Wants to be a Millionaire," Variety was reporting about how the show was losing viewers and headed toward a collapse. And it recently wrote about how writers are getting screwed by the new economics of TV.

As a whole, the trades covered the rise and fall of Mike Ovitz's empire. The debates over deregulation at the FCC and in Congress. How and why networks were demanding ownership stakes in TV series, as well as how and why the independent TV studios disappeared. The awkward relationship between News Corp. and Viacom regarding UPN. Our ratings reporter at Variety slices and dices the numbers better than anyone, and is beholden to no one. The list goes on.

While consumer publications don't have the space or the resources to cover the nitty gritty details of the entertainment business, the trades are the place to go deep inside and explain what it all means. Who's making money and who's not. Whose job is safe--and who's heading to the chopping block. Why some shows are canceled, and the reason why certain films have flopped. Some stories are positive, while others may piss people off. Just like any publication covering any beat.

Check out any press tour, or go backstage at an awards program. It's the trade press (and their business-oriented brethren at the newspapers) that ask the tough questions.

The consumer folk, meanwhile, are too busy chasing down whether or not Ben Affleck really slept with a prostitute. TV news, for its part, does virtually no real reporting about the entertainment business.

The trades aren't perfect, not by any stretch of the imagination. But they're home to journalists who want the time and space to cover the industry with some depth.