Critics play a game of survivor
One of the most memorable moments of the TV press tour, the twice-a-year junket that starts today in Pasadena, was provided by Gail Shister, the scrappy columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer.
In early 2004, Shister took the microphone and in front of 200 or so colleagues asked network honcho Leslie Moonves whether he'd recuse himself from decision-making for "The Early Show," given that he was then dating co-host Julie Chen. Moonves, who seems to enjoy sparring with reporters and is seldom caught speechless, reacted to Shister's query as if he'd just seen the ghost of Edward R. Murrow rise up and do the Dance of the Seven Veils.
"Are you writing for Page Six now?" was the best riposte he could manage. (Chen later married Moonves.)
Shister, alas, won't be putting any executives on the hot seat at this summer's tour. In a sign of how the newspaper industry's financial woes are catching up even with supposedly reader-friendly media and entertainment coverage, her bosses have ordered her to alternate attendance at the winter and summer meetings of the Television Critics Assn. with a colleague.
A tour veteran and the paper's TV columnist for nearly 25 years, Shister is miffed to be staying home, cut off from making new contacts and trolling for scoops. But given the economic turmoil shaking the newspaper business -- especially at the Inquirer, recently sold to a group of private investors after former owner Knight-Ridder was put on the block -- a prudent journalist might want to avoid second-guessing too many spending decisions, lest the gaze of the powers-that-be alights on the spreadsheet line that includes the reporter's salary.
"Basically, our budget was decimated, especially our travel budget, and TCA was a big-ticket item," Shister told me Friday. (Her editor, Sandy Clark, did not return an e-mail seeking comment, but reporters interviewed for this column said papers typically spend up to $5,000 each tour to pay for plane tickets, hotel costs and incidentals.)
At the press tour, cable and broadcast networks bus in stars and producers to hype the new fall and midseason shows to reporters, spending $100,000 to $250,000 apiece for panels and parties, according to publicists. The reporters then massage, dress and send home that news to you, the end user. So the event is as good a place as any to weigh the changes affecting -- afflicting? -- what used to be known as feature (or, in other precincts of the newsroom, "soft") journalism. At the very least, the changes hitting newspapers may influence how readers get their news about what's on TV, not to mention the other arts.
