By Gary Dretzka Dretzka@moviecitynews.com
Stop the presses! Newsweek sells soul to 'Da Vinci Code'!
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April 17, 2006
In its continuing effort to keep America abreast of all things “Da Vinci Code,” Newsweek has treated its readers to a lengthy “exclusive” preview story; a “Newsweek on Air” panel discussion of the cover story; an on-line Q&A with lead reporter, Devin Gordon; several hundred searchable items on the website it shares with MSNBC.com; links to the movie trailer; and sponsored links to Sony’s official publicity website, SexPriestsAndSecretCodes.com, DaVinciAndJesus.com and a purveyor of audio books. Several more sponsored links to “Code” ephemera can found via the Verizon With MSN search engine, which appears to be affiliated with Newsweek, as well.
With friends like this in the media, who needs an advertising budget?
The latest item to surface in Newsweek’s increasingly frivolous Periscope gossip/trivia column is an in-depth investigative piece on the hairdo favored by Tom Hanks’ character in the movie, which launches on May 19. As silly as it might look on a fictional Harvard symbologist and real-life Hollywood multimillionaire, the coiffure hardly qualifies as news .
And, neither does the imaginary tempest in a teapot furthered by reporters Gordon and Sean Smith. Instead, it’s the kind of baloney bored studio executives enjoy feeding to desperate reporters, knowing they’ll swallow it hook, line and sinker.
As the story goes, rival studio brass are keeping themselves busy these days by speculating out loud about how many millions of dollars Hanks’ modified mullet – which he’s also wearing in a ponytail — will cost Sony. (The answer, of course, is “none.”) The reporters go so far as to ascribe “whisper campaign” to what likely is nothing more than one exec at the Mr. Chow asking another, “Did you see Hanks on Letterman last night?”
If the movie performs as expected, every 40-plus male in the 90210 zip code will be sporting the same look by the 4th of July, even it means a visit to the Hair Club for Men.
Typically, though, for these kinds of non-stories, it took two reporters, two unnamed sources and 290 words not only to alert Periscope readers to the alleged whisper campaign, but, also, in the next paragraph, to completely discredit the rumor. Worst of all, perhaps, the journalistic assault squad actually allowed one of the anonymous sources to repeat the threadbare cliché, “In Hollywood, it’s not enough that I win. You have to lose.”
Why did Newsweek editors accord the “perpetrators” of this “whisper campaign” anonymity, if all the readers were going to get from it was a quote so old it’s growing whiskers? Oh, yeah, I forgot … the usual rules don’t apply when it comes to Hollywood gossip. – G.D.
