posted 12-20-2000 01:49 AM               

I’m reading Tom’s article, and I’m thinking two things – 1) Being paranoid with the press is something that always comes back to bite you, and 2) Someone needs to set up a reviewer of reviewers, because finding one you can trust can be a major pain the butt. We trust reviewers to intelligently evaluate products and give us useful information about them, but I have to wonder just how often the reviewers in question don’t have anywhere near the knowledge, time or experience needed to do that job the way it should be. I had a brief career in journalism before I went back to academia, and I worked for both a PR firm and for a technology trade magazine. I was amazed at how much effort my PR firm put into wooing and managing software reviewers, making sure their questions were answered, their problems solved, and their possible biases and peeves addressed. Then I got to the magazine, where within a week or two I was writing reviews of sophisticated and expensive technology that corporations would be buying for their telecommunications operations – often without seeing the product at all, relying on a press release and an interview with the product manager. (And if I did manage to get my hands on a sample of the product, it was often accompanied by free T shirts, hats, mugs, shirts, etc., etc. . . . no tasty finger sandwiches, though. Darn it.) Some of these articles were for the Editors’ Choice section, a distinction that would soon find its way into the product advertising. In fairness, the magazine was in the process of building a testing lab, so maybe things got better after I left . . . but it just drove home that most reviews require a salt mine or two. Just because someone can get himself on “Live with Regis and Someone Other Than Kathie Lee” doesn’t make him an authority on anything other than getting to talk to Regis Philbin . . . and a few well placed toll-free calls will let you do that yourself.

Of course, if we say something’s good, that you can take to the bank.

posted 12-20-2000 01:51 AM               

Everything I know about Radiohead I learned from reading Tom’s article. Not only do my musical tastes differ drastically from the rest of the TINN staffers, I am quite lax at staying abreast of the popular music scene. I’m not given to perusing music magazines. If I do catch a music review, it’s usually from my local newspaper, which is not exactly the cutting edge of the music world. That said, after I read this piece I had the overwhelming urge to paraphrase my hero Josh Lyman “This is the way the world works?” Call me naïve but this really bites. I don’t see the value of hanging the future of a CD’s success on groups of people you’re filling with large amounts if alcohol but then I’ve always been conservative in that area.

Moreover, I have a love-hate relationship with those in the “review business,” that is, people who write reviews about music, food, movies, and books for a living. For one thing, I’m extremely jealous that they have found themselves in these exquisite existences and can call them jobs. How much would you like to tell the IRS that Gourmet magazine pays you to scour the universe for the perfect steak? Or that the New York Times demands that you arrange your life around watching movies. Or course, the down side to this is that you have to eat many, many bad steaks and watch many, many films starring Jennifer Love Hewitt.

Personally, I live in fear of just how much I am influenced by these people. How much is my desire to see a movie influenced by the snippet of a review I heard during my morning drive? Would I have bought that Alan Jackson CD if the reporter from the Daily News had not said it was great? How many of the books on my Amazon wish list are there because Oprah liked them? (Thankfully, on that last one, none, but you get my point.)

I’m grateful for Tom’s insights in to the review business because, with all of discussions about the power of the media, this is one area we often overlook. Just as our local evening news like to grab our attention with “leads that bleed,” reviewers need to catch our attention with catch phrases, rating systems, or overly showy adjectives and exclamation points about the merits or faults of their subjects. Perhaps incidents such as the Radiohead backlash could be kept at a minimum if the reviewers didn’t feel so compelled to fill their pages with words like “ambient” and simply stated their (actual) opinions. Of course, it’s a lot harder to justify your exquisite, finger-sandwich-eating existence to readers and the IRS if you don’t make your reviews sound a little artsy-fartsy.

posted 12-20-2000 01:54 AM               

The Radiohead thing seems like a fairly safe bet on the record label’s part; as Tom said, the success of OK Computer set up the party as a pretty sure shot that people would come off with a good impression of the album – unless it was a drastic departure.

I’ve heard of places – usually record stores and clubs – having listening parties before, on the night of a new release. I’ve been to midnight sales, but never a listening party, and it really sounds like a lot of fun. To do something like Tom describes, though, seems a cheap shot.

posted 01-04-2001 05:03 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by slgorman:
Turns out I heard that most of these said unheard of people and media outlets are ususally "bribed" in a way to say something nice so the PR dept can put something gleeming about the movie in their press stuff.

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posted 01-04-2001 05:19 PM               

quote:

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Would I have bought that Alan Jackson CD if the reporter from the Daily News had not said it was great?

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