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Writers and others have been complaining to Variety today about an AMPTP ad which doesn’t identify itself as such located right above the trade’s strike coverage. “Holy crap, how much are the AMPTP paying them? Oh right, tons,” one WGA member emailed me. “Not to mention the ad misquotes David Young once again, but misinformation from the AMPTP is a given at this point.”
The complaints prompted Variety‘s online editor Dana Harris to post this message on the site: “Yes, that is definitely an ad. We’ve received some emails complaining that the Flash banner above could be confused for a editorial content since there’s no identification of its advertising status. However, it is an ad; click on it and you’re redirected to the AMPTP site. Its lack of advertising identification is a technical glitch that we’re currently working to resolve. In the meantime, please know that the space above the posts and below the Scribe Vibe logo goes to those who pay for it.”
There’s no doubt that Variety‘s now famous post-strike headlines blaming the writers for every sorry twist and turn in these complicated negotiations with the studios/networks have increased rather than decreased, from my estimation. As a result, I thought I’d share this email interaction between succesfull TV writer Nicole Yorkin and Variety editor Peter Bart over her decision to cancel her subscription:
Sent: Monday, December 10, 2007 3:33 PM
To: Bart, Peter (RBI-US)
Subject: from Nicole Yorkin
Dear Mr. Bart,
As a former journalist and long-time subscriber to Variety, I used to eagerly look forward to reading your newspaper every morning. That’s before the WGA strike and your coverage of it. As a long-time Writer’s Guild member, and someone who has some access to what’s really going on behind the scenes, I have to say I have been shocked by your biased and inaccurate coverage of the strike and negotiations. At first, I kept expecting you to finally come around and realize the journalistic standards I hold any newspaper to. When that didn’t happen, I convinced myself it was valuable to read what the other side was thinking, (as expressed in your “news articles” every day). Finally, I had to say to myself that if Variety were this far off the truth in covering the strike, what else must it be dissembling about? I concluded I couldn’t really believe a thing in Variety. And for that reason, I’m asking you to cancel my subscription as of now, and return the portion of money I’m owed.
Once again, I want to express my disappointment in your newspaper’s apparent lack of journalistic standards. I know my view is wide-spread amongst my peers.
Sincerely,
Nicole Yorkin
—
On Dec 17, 2007 5:00 PM, Bart, Peter (RBI-US) wrote:
Dear Nicole Yorkin,
I respectfully think you’ve drunk the Kool-Aid — Variety’s coverage has been objective. What motivation would we have to invoke a bias? Must every Guild (or every company) be validated for their every demand?
Peter Bart
—
Date: Dec 17, 2007 10:22 PM
Subject: Re: from Nicole Yorkin
To: “Bart, Peter (RBI-US)”
Dear Peter Bart,
What “motivation” would you have to “invoke a bias?” You can’t really be seriously asking that question, so I’ll assume you’re joking.
Respectfully,
Nicole Yorkin
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Gee, Peter, I don’t know– maybe those bullshit “Hey everybody, we’re having an ass-kissing issue on Will Smith!” things you do have clouded your editorial/advertising divide?
When we come back in January, to the picket lines, I suggest we throw up a secondary line around the Variety offices, to protest their Pravda like distortions.
WGA East on the line
The best and only argument Peter Bart could have made is that he can’t be expected to be objective because he’s a former studio exec and remains a part-time film and TV producer. I mean, come on, he didn’t even recuse himself from running a review of his own movie, “Fun with Dick & Jane,” which while not entirely glowing was still much more positive than the film seems to have deserved. Make no mistake about it, the trades are nothing more than a medium through which the studios and networks tell the Hollywood public what they want them to know. They are not “journalism” in any un-ironic sense of the word.
Dave McNary’s coverage has been objective? Wow, my mistake.
Is there anyone left in the WGA who still has their subscription? Please dump this rag. It will never be anywhere near me or my show’s offices.
Why don’t you all drop your subscriptions and stop paying that godawful price at 7-11? I used to read both until it became too expensive!
“DRUNK THE KOOL-AID” only indicates the lack of erudition and class of Peter Bart. Disgusting.
I’m with DB at 1:45pm. Where is the apology? Even if it’s one of those fake/rote apologies? How hard would it have been to say I’m sorry you aren’t enjoying your subscription to Variety?
Where is the declaration that Variety has been THE trade paper since 1933 and is read around the world? Where is the touting of awards won and careers made?
“Drank the Koolaid?”
Was this guy’s assistant away from their desk, that this was even sent out with his name on it? Reading that little blurb bewilders me the same way as watching Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah’s couch. What the hell?!
I actually think a lot of the “bias” can be chalked up to laziness. These guys are used to simply fielding press releases and calls from agents and then regurgitating it. The major work they do is when they translate everything from English into their jazzed up Variety-speak from the 1940s. Variety is just not geared for investigative journalism on any meaningful level.
The real “bias” is mostly a simple (and powerful) predisposition to believe the companies are powerful and the writers are weak and therefore all news must be bad news for the WGA.
It’s enough to make a scribe want to axe his subscripsh!
No surprise that Peter Bart lacks even the most basic of English skills.
The AMPTP banner ad is now next to and much larger than the Variety logo on the homepage. The AMPTP doesn’t even have the guts to identify themselves.
Bart’s grammar is correct. “Drunk the Kool-aid” is the correct way of phrasing that part of the sentence. I find it amusing that writers are criticizing someone for incorrect grammar when they’re the ones that are actually wrong…
Likewise “invoke bias” or “invoke a bias” is correct. Just because you are not familiar with a phrase does not mean it’s being used incorrectly. I would suggest brushing up on your own grammar usage before critcizing others for theirs.
(Now one COULD take issue with the fact that it was Flavor-aid, and not Kool-aid, that was used to in the Jonestown massacre (the source of the phrase “Drunk the Kool-aid”), but that’s another matter…)
Are there any writers who still buy that AMPTP propaganda sheet? They don’t even have enough respect for the readers to TRY to APPEAR not to be kissing their advertisers’ asses.
Variety (and the Reporter) have been worthless for years. Save your money folks.
Why would anybody want to know what Bart, some glorified driver for Bob Evans half a century ago, has to say about anything anyway?
My jaw dropped at Bart’s response. What happened to polite and respectful email communication? No small business owner would ever talk to a customer like that – what makes him think he can get away with it?
Yeah, the trades are accepting the money of the majors. They also accept all the b.s. ads from agents and managers trying to get their clients noticed. The ad market has been down so much after consolidation (the same consolidation you’re all bitching about) that the trades had to diversify and take on real estate, airlines, hotels, cars, etc.
Nikki’s own site here, assume the ads are sold by LA Weekly, carries ads by the studios yet they’re not calling and canceling their ads anymore than they’re threatening Nikki to pull them for her WGA-slanted coverage. If either were the case, there’d be a big headline complete with an URGENT and TOLDJA.
Peter Bart is Peter Bart. He’s got a lot of people at that paper who would run him out of town if they felt the coverage was unbalanced. Very friendly reporters who do take care of the creative types. This is a tired angle. Please move on.
I sort of want to subscribe now, just to see if I can goad Bart into a flame war with me.
McNary’s completely false article about the Young and the Restless writers writers crossing picket lines was picked up in its entirety by Entertaiment Weekly the second week of the strike.
Variety buried its retraction, admitting that no Y&R writers were crossing the lines. Entertainment Weekly never printed a retraction or correction for McNary’s inaccurate story. Perhaps we should bring this to EW’s attention??
“Dear Nicole Yorkin”–
Was that supposed to sound dismissive? It comes off like an insult from a drag queen.
Bart is taking notes from the AMTPT’s PR department.
“please know that the space above the posts and below the Scribe Vibe logo goes to those who pay for it”
They forgot to mention that the actually reporting at Variety leans toward those who pay for it also!
I’d been giving serious thought to canceling my own Variety subscription, but always been too damn lazy. “When it expires, I won’t renew,” I decided.
No more. Thanks to Nikki for reporting this story, to Nicole Yorkin for succintly expressing why it’s important that I cancel now … and most of all, to Peter Bart, for making clear the regard Variety holds for its subscribers.
Pass the Kool-Aid. I’m thirsty for some real journalism.
I have completely stopped paying for Variety magazine for a *variety* of reasons. Reading Variety is a little like watching porn — after the first minute or two you start to feel dirty. Writing aside, some of their ads are pure oral action. (Remember the ‘Showpersons of the Year’ orgy back in September?)
When I do read it now, I just glance through an issue at the library occasionally and filter everything from the standpoint that it’s all fiction. Tabloid fun; nothing more.
What’s the surprise here? Anyone who’s watched an episode of “Sunday Morning Shootout” knows Bart has trouble speaking as well.
I’m 34 years old and have never seen someone worse on camera.
Hey Vincent,
You sure about your grammar there, buddy? What book did you use to check the rules?
Go ahead and check ‘em all ya want. We’ll just claim “artistic license” and give you a raspberry… then go on to something more interesting.
Also, does anyone really care what that old fart Bart has to say? Seriously? Anyone UNDER the age of 50? Anyone?
Anyone?
Bueller? Bueller?
seriously? it’s come to complaining about an ad? So is Juno part of the content that Nikki wrote? It’s up there in the corner and there is nothing that says ‘ad’ on it. C’mon! stay focused on getting a deal done folks. (both sides)
Lulubrooks (and others): ‘drank’ is the past simple form of ‘drink’ ‘drunk’ is the past participle form and is the correct usage because of the inclusion of an operative word (‘have’) in his e-mail. German is my first language and I know this.
It’s a good thing grammar knowledge isn’t part of the WGA deal. 
lulubrooks, d’drunk’ is the past participle of ‘drink.’ If you’re using the word ‘have,’ thereby implying a past action, you follow it with ‘drunk,’ not ‘drank.’ If you think otherwise, you’re simply incorrect.
I would agree with you, though, that talking about Bart’s grammar is silly. That was why I pointed out the writers’ own incorrect grammar in this thread. Lashing out at Bart because they THINK his grammar is incorrect is childish and petty–especially when they’re the ones who are wrong.
Nicole Yorkin? Any relation to Bud Yorkin?
(Just watched the 2nd disc ‘making-of’ Blade Runner..)