Recently in Newspapers Category

On Monday evening The Hollywood Reporter (THR) blew off an industry standard embargo and ran the South by Southwest Film Festival & Conference lineup story a day early. According to SXSW fest producer Matt Dentler, the release was embargoed until Tuesday afternoon. I don't want to get into a big snit about this, but it's kinda fucked up. Embargoes are, for lack of a better word, understandings among the trades. They work both ways and when one publication ignores them, they all get hurt.

Not only is ignoring embargoes dishonest but given the various friendships and relationships that abound in this industry (between film festival directors, trade publications, distribution companies, etc.) it's also risky. It's a slippery slope and with the advent of the Internet and instant news, "traditional" Hollywood trades Variety and THR no longer have the stranglehold on news and info they once had. Sure, they can still strong arm certain people or companies into giving them exclusives, but their influence is waning.

I don't mean to claim that Variety and THR are not still valid sources of intelligent news reporting, festival coverage and reviews, that would be absurd. They are still the dual 800 lb. gorillas in the room. That said, I do think that the days of the entire film industry, studios and indies alike, having to kowtow to the "big two" are over. Sure, we can all get along if we all agree to abide by standard rules but if a "free for all" attitude prevails, there's no longer any guarantee that Variety and THR still have the strangle hold over the news as they have in days past. For any one "trade" paper to break these mutually agreed upon rules is harmful to the whole.

That said, check out these stories on SXSW's exceptional lineup. I will be writing more about the films (and music) at this essential fest in the days and weeks to come.

An article on the front page of today's print edition of the New York Times entitled: "Rebel Unity Is Scarce at the Darfur Talks in Libya" has the following photograph accompanied by the caption: "A Darfur rebel took in the buffet lunch at his hotel in Sirte, Libya. Many rebel leaders did not show up for talks called in an effort to end the bloody conflict in Sudan."

Photo by Jehad Nga for The New York Times, © The New York Times

Hmmmm, didn't show up, you say? Well, were they told that there'd be cake? I find cake is often an incentive to gather warring factions all in one room.

I also find that a picture of starving, brutalized people is a far more effective means of getting the message of genocide out than a picture of a rebel in a tracksuit eating more than most people in his country get in a year.

Photo from Wondering of a Wanderer

Just a thought.

We are officially a culturally bankrupt society when this is news:

Hilton, Richie Seen at L.A. Steakhouse

Ok, ever since there have been celebrities, a part of the media has been dedicated to covering their exploits and that's fine. They're famous and a part of the general public likes reading about famous people. That said, these two no-talent stick figures are famous for being, basically, blithering idiots. Still they're famous, so some sites like TMZ.com and TheSuperficial.com (which I confess to perusing from time to time in order to slake my thirst for celebs doing stupid shit) but really, what the FUCK is the New York Times doing running this shit on thier site? I mean, do they have to run everything the AP files?

Excuse me. I need to go wash my eyeballs out from reading this shit.

Too funny, this bit from The Guardian's football coverage in February of 2004:

"On Saturday Bolton substituted Giannakopoulos for Ba. Is the longest name substitution for the shortest ever?" asks Brendan Lyons.

"Wayne Carlisle has scored all three of Bristol Rovers goals against Carlisle United to help the Gas win both their matches 2-0 and 1-0," says Diego Black. "Is this the first case of a player scoring all his clubs goals in a season against a club which shares his surname?"

Send your questions and answers to knowledge@guardian.co.uk

I am on record as being a big fan of James McTeigue's V For Vendetta but I am beginning to have a big problem with some of the critics out there who are trashing this film in less than critically intelligent ways. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with people disliking films that I like or vice versa but it seems like many of these nay-saying, V-hating critics are viewing the picture without any sense of context or history. V For Vendetta is the third in a series of truly progressive-bordering-on-the-radical films released by Warner Bros., following on the heels of Good Night, and Good Luck and Syriana, both of which I loved. In fact I would go so far as to say that the three of them ought to be released in a box set with commentary by Noam Chomsky, Studs Terkel and Frank Rich in addition to commentary by the filmmakers.

From the Scottish Sun newspaper after Scottish Premier League minnows Inverness Caledonian Thistle beat league powerhouse Glasgow Celtic 1-0 to knock the giants out of the Scottish Cup in 2003:

Super Cali Go Ballistic, Celtic Are Atrocious

Here's an interesting article from The Guardian, one of the only newspapers in the world worth reading, assuming you like your news with minimal right-wing bias and a decent sense of humor. This piece goes nicely with my recent music post about my favorite cd's of the year, so far.

Wow. Talk about your slow news day, eh? The New York Times published an astonishing front page story exposing the CIA's practice of using empty shell companies, some apparently run by people who don't exist, to hide the agency's use of civilian plane to perform clandestine government business.

Two days after the French public dealt a serious blow to European unity by rejecting the EU constitution, French president Jacques Chirac fired his Prime Minister and appoints Dominique de Villepin, France's former foreign minister from 2002-04 and leading critic of the United States-led invasion of Iraq.

Sir Bob Geldof announced a series of "Live 8" shows in cities in Europe and the US to commemorate both the 20th anniversary of "Live Aid" as well as to call attention to the impending G8 summit of the leaders of the USA, UK, France, Russia, Germany, Japan, Italy and Canada. The European Commission is also represented and this year's summit is set for Gleneagles, Scotland on July 6-8, 2005.

Oh....and one of the largest political mysteries of modern times was solved when the identity of the chief source that enabled Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to break the Watergate scandal in the early 1970's. Like I said. Slow day.

In a Washingtonpost.com story dated Friday, March 18, 2005, about rapper Lil' Kim's clothing choices during her trial, Post staffer Robin Givhan writes the following:

"The jury found her guilty of perjury and conspiracy, and the Associated Press reported that she could face a penalty of as much as 20 years in the joint at her June 24 sentencing. Her assistant Monique Dopwell was also convicted."

Excuse me? The joint? The JOINT!!?? When did "The Joint" become AP/NYT/Washington Post style guide synonymous with Federal Prison? I did a Google search on "Lil' Kim", joint. Care to guess on what other publications came up? The New York Times? No. Christian Science Monitor? Nope. Not one other publication with a story about the conviction turned up. Now, when I replaced "joint" with "prison"....Newsday, NYT, Boston Globe, Reuters, AP, etc.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Ms. Givhan is the Post's style editor. Why is this important? Well, it's not, but I have another post about Ms. Givhan's, uh, journalism, later today. I'm too damn tired, now.

One of the few reasons I haven't completely given up on the New York Times, despite their complicity in the Bush administration's phony baloney war in Iraq and myriad other abuses of power emanating from Washington, Albany and other seats of government, is that the Arts, Metro, Home, Travel and other sections are often still damn interesting sources of information. One recent example is this article about Liverpool and the peculiar dialect of English spoken there, called Scouse.

Liverpool, in the Northwest of England, is the home to the team I support in the English Premier League, Liverpool FC. When English football is mentioned in US newspapers outside of the sports sections, the team almost always mentioned is Manchester United. For example, there are 657 references to "Manchester United" in the New York Times since 1996 and, well, far fewer for any combination of words and phrases I can combine for Liverpool. (Americans tend to drop the "FC" so a search for "Liverpool" doesn't help and "Liverpool FC" yields zero results.) Additionally, we're having a very rough season, so attention is even harder to get.

That said, not only is this piece interesting from a linguistic and cultural standpoint, the third and fourth word of the piece are "Rafael Benitez," who happens to be the Spanish-born manager (the NYT called him the "coach") of Liverpool FC! Not only that, but the story on the website has a picture of 'Rafa" as well as one of our Captain, midfielder Stephen Gerrard.

Care to guess what the title of this post says?