Publicists, Journos, and Ethical Lines in the Sand
Over on Facebook — where, shockingly enough, some of the most interesting film biz conversations I’ve had lately started — Film Society Lincoln Center publicist John Wildman posted a status update that reminded me of a piece I outlined a while back and then promptly forgot to finish. John’s Facebook comment pertained to a journo who’d been granted interview access to a filmmaker whose film was screening at FSLC, who (in John’s view) completely misrepresented what the interview was going to be about (to wit: it had nothing to do with the project for which the interview opportunity had been offered).
One of the commenters on John’s post (not the journo in question) chimed in with a journalistic point of view on dealing with publicists, in which she also made some salient points, particularly about publicists trying to control how journalists do their jobs. All this interesting conversation reminded me that I’d been thinking about this topic a couple weeks ago; with TIFF looming, it seemed a good time to bring up a discussion on the subject, because TIFF, as we all well know, is one of those fests where journos and publicists have to work and play together quite a lot.
Now I hear where John’s coming from as a publicist, but it’s also true that the nature of our jobs often puts journos and publicists at odds. The publicist’s job is to promote the client and the particular film they’ve been contracted to promote, and the journalist, sometimes, is simply more interested in getting the most interesting, most “exclusive” story possible. Unfortunately, it’s a conundrum of working the interviewing side of this business that talent often says pretty much the same things in every single interview, and it all starts to sound alike.
How do you make your interview stand out? By catching the talent off guard and getting in some questions about other projects, or juicy tidbits about what it was like to work with that actor or director, or whatever. And I get this, I do, but gosh almighty, back in the days when I occasionally worked some junkets, I hated it when some journalist or blogger would try to sneak in something totally off point. It catches the talent off guard (which I guess is partly the intent), and it pisses the publicist off (not necessarily the intent, but certainly a potential consequence). Do it too much, and you can find yourself blacklisted, with your access cut off. Like it or not, the publicists control the access, ergo it doesn’t behoove someone with long-term career aspirations to piss off the gatekeeper, even if you do believe yourself to be the keymaster.
And yes, journalists should have journalistic integrity, which means that our job is not (contrary to what some publicists might like) to promote the talent or film or festival that we’re writing about. Our job is to find the story and write about it, or see the film and review it — good, bad or indifferent. Nonetheless, that line — particularly at junkets, but at festivals too — can get blurred. One side controls the access and views the story as publicity, the other side needs the access to do the job of writing the story, but wants to maintain journalistic integrity. And that pull-and-tug does create conflicts.
For me, when it comes to an interview situation like the one John brought up in his post, it really just boils down to honesty. If I am obtaining an interview under the pretense that I’m interviewing this actor about THIS project, and then use that opportunity to try to get a completely different story, I am LYING. End of line, so far as I’m concerned. And there’s also huge difference between seeking out that angle or story no one else has by creatively working in a question or two among many, versus saying you’re doing one story, when you really intend to do another one entirely.
You don’t (or at least I have chosen not to) build a positive reputation by lying to colleagues, unless you are actively seeking to build a rep as a dick or looking to burn bridges, or you are convinced that this story is going to be a huge break that will set your career and render you powerful enough that publicists won’t matter. And if you think that, let me clue you in: that doesn’t really happen that often.
So what say you, my journalist and publicist friends and colleagues? Does a journalist have an obligation to stick to the project at hand when interviewing talent? Or is anything and everything you can get in there fair game?
I guess it’s only right for me to be the first to add to this one. And here was the situation that inspired all of this: We had a filmmaker screening his latest film at FSLC. He is a guy that more than a few people wanted to talk to, so the journalist in question requested an interview to talk about the new film and the guy’s career. We connect the two on the phone and he uses the majority of his time to ask the director about his thoughts regarding another director. The piece comes out and there isn’t a thing about the film he said he wanted to interview the guy about OR the director’s career.
So now, we’ve already had the awkwardness of “our” director asking post-interview what all that was about and then the piece reveals that the journalist had misrepresented his intentions from the beginning (as opposed to having just been led on a tangent and going with the conversation flow). He really just wanted to do a story on the other director and this guy’s views and recollections about him. It was a weasel move, plain and simple. Cut to today and the same guy comes back asking for access to two of the “biggest” directors we’ve got for NYFF. Well, it’s too bad for him but I have not forgotten…
There is a trust that journalists and publicists HAVE to have with one another combined with a respect for each other’s jobs. Journalist seeks out the news and the story and publicist hopes to convince the journalist to (at best) see the publicist’s story as news or at the least take into strong consideration the publicist’s “take” on that story or news.
That’s how I see it and that’s how I approach the job.
John, I agree with you that it’s a symbiotic relationship, and there has to be mutual respect. I hate it when I hear journalists deride the job publicists do. And frankly, there are films, especially at the huge fests like TIFF and Sundance, that would never get on my radar were it not for passionate publicists who take the time to learn what kinds of films I’m likely to be interested in, and then shoot me an email or call me to say, “Hey, we have 10 films at the fest, but these are the two I think you’re most likely to enjoy … would you check them out?”
And also, most of the publicists I deal with regularly know better than to attack me after a screening to get my immediate reaction. I know that your client wants to know what response was at the P&I screening, and I sympathize with his or her anxiety over that film baby, I really do. But give me some space to process what I just saw without breathing down my neck, please. You’re likely to get a better — or at least more honest — response if you do so.
As far as interviews go, that’s another kettle of fish entirely. I don’t generally do interviews these days, I stick with watching and reviewing films and let David do the interviewing; he is ever so much better at that than I am.
I do have one quibble with you, John. I hear that from your perspective, you hope to sway the “take” on a story, and I agree that that’s your job. But as a writer, my take isn’t always going to align with yours (using “my” and “yours” in the generic sense here), and as journalists our job is not to write publicity pieces. If “my” take happens to align with yours, then swell. But gosh almighty, if there’s anything critics and interviewers hate, it’s PR people getting pushy or up in our grill when we don’t fall in love with a particular project of theirs.
And I think you’ll agree with me that the best publicists also know when to trust a writer’s instincts.
“Mr. Corleone is a man who insists on hearing bad news immediately.”
If a movie is about to get slaughtered, I prefer to let the publicist know on my way out of the theater. It’s kinder. And publicists don’t like being surprised an hour later as I spread the entrails out in a Twitter or blog post.
David, in a case like that, where I truly hate a film and I know that walking out of the theater that I will be slamming it — especially if it’s a studio film — then yes, I will generally give a heads up to the publicist. But at a fest like Sundance or TIFF, if it’s some small indie passion project that’s hoping to get seen by buyers and sold, I really don’t see the point of slaughtering it an hour after the P&I screening. Do you?
Maybe I hated it and it didn’t connect with me at all, but maybe it nailed you and you loved it. What’s the point of beating up on it right then? I’m more inclined to just say, “Sorry, I won’t be covering it.” Sometimes I’m so into the film I just cannot speak about it right away. When we walked out of the BIUTIFUL screening, the last thing I wanted was to talk to a publicist. I was barely coherent. My head was all wrapped up in processing that astonishing performance by Javier Bardem. Wasn’t yours?
And then some films I need to sit on at least for a couple hours to really process — BLACK SWAN, NEVER LET ME GO, even NO END IN SIGHT, all from last TIFF. And then occasionally — as with IT’S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY from last year at TIFF — I end up feeling like my immediate emotional response was too influenced by a vociferous reaction from a critic crowd joyfully piling on in a big ol’ pile of viciousness, and I need to see it again
in order to give it a fair and honest assessment.
Bottom line: while I do sometimes give a heads up before running a negative review, I completely loathe being attacked on my way out the theater door while my head is still in the film. Even if it’s a publicist I like.