Did Hollywood Industry Rags Really Report False Stories? Knowingly?
SAG negotiator Doug Allen was the subject of some false reporting, yesterday, in these three journals, apparently:
- Backstage Magazine (link to false SAG article, dated today, which is day after!…Means they published something that was known not to be true, publicly, by that time-of-publish!)
- The Hollywood Reporter (link to false SAG article-note same authors!)
- Variety (link to false SAG story)
All three of these reported “Late Breaking News”.
Problem was, their “news flash” was not true. Not when they reported it, anyway. (I can’t know what is happening today, which is the second day of the Screen Actor Guild National Board Meeting.)
They said that Doug Allen was fired, by SAG’s national board. Their articles continued to detail the history of internal strife at SAG.
Please don’t pay attention to the Hollywood Press.
…How crazy is that, that I am forced to advise that!
“Don’t be naive, Dana, these rags never are accurate for news.”
That’s what some people have responded, to my shock about their journalistic fabrication.
(If it is, as is reported by Nikki Finke, in her ongoing column called “Deadline Hollywood Daily”...)
I say this, I don’t like lying anywhere. I especially don’t appreciate, being a member of the public, and assuming that journalism is adhering to a certain set of standards. Of truth. The public goes to these journals for facts. Factual, truthful, information. Journals are supposed to be the source of such.
Now, if it’s accepted in Hollywood that “entertainment news” can be trumped up and falsely reported, well, that’s up to them.
But, when it becomes socially persuasive, or influences people to one side or another; or is disseminated for some kind of personal gain, and in exchange, could cause others harm…I find it unconscionable.
What harm can come to actors from this?
Well:
It affirms what has been going on since this began: a portrayal, overall, of actors as dumb, silly, out of touch, out of control. In other words, furthering a tangential view of the actors’ stance as something obscure and abstract. Allowing this actor-bias to control the public attention, and veering the public away from the real issues. Issues that are concrete and very logical. Substantial.
In other words, a bashing smokescreen.
AMPTP Is Only Offering A Low or No Money Deal To Actors
This whole AMPTP/SAG issue has become far off-the-mark of what it truly is about. (Uh, paying actors for work.)
Instead it has been about so much that isn’t related, and the public has no way to decipher what the heck it is about.
It all looks like something the actors are doing to themselves, and doing to others; or rather if SAG does choose to strike, then they are out to destroy the world, the country, the economy, you-the-common-man.
That is absolutely nuts.
And, in this era of acceptable false reporting: it is simple propaganda.
That’s heinous, for those reporters to do that. According to Nikki Finke, the Variety reporter was asked, by SAG, to state a retraction. He did not.
What’s the gain for them, you may ask…I am not sure. Read Nikki Finke’s take on it.
Maybe, like many journalists, he has been working on a screenplay, or even has one on the studio desks, right now? I have no clue.
It’s a hell-of-a-lot more dramatic to report all this drama, I guess…then the truth of how difficult it is to survive as an actor. What the life really is.
‘Hollywood’ is a one-factory town. ‘ With Powerful Bosses Running It.
As I’ve written before, this is a small town, as far as the business goes. The bosses are clearly the bosses, and the workers are in the bread lines.
The bosses have the better parties with the celebrities, and can invite you over for a tennis match on their backyard court.
While the actors are leaving town, not able to survive.
…I’ll investigate all of this, and post more with more factual information…
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Update #1
Newer News On False SAG News!!
Within an hour after publishing this blog post, I am back!
And…Guess what? Now Variety has published a new and different article, on SAG and the results of the 2 day National Board Meeting, and just within the last few minutes!
The Variety reporter, of this current SAG article, is “staff”.
A-hem.
It’s a totally different story.
No retraction on the false one. No comment from them either.
Hey! That’s a solution! Just print another story, um…
…With a whole different ‘story’????
Here’s the title, from the new Variety-on-SAG-reportage…click on it to read ‘full SAG story’, this one, I mean!
“SAG status quo proceeds (main title)
Allen keeps job after two-day session (smaller print, subtitle…)
In the last two days, SAG has been full of sound and fury, signifying … the status quo.”
I am reprinting the first line, here, as one example…illustrating what I mean, about “actor bias” and not only from Variety, but in much of the reportage on the AMPTP conflict with SAG.
Look how they portray SAG by ridiculing them, instead of admitting their own mistake.
Actor-bashing as sport, and able to? Due to lower “status” in factory-town??
Have you seen my post where I reprint my comments to the L.A. Times writer?
As well as the article, to illustrate futher, about how this postential actor strike, and the disputed issues, are either twisted, or not listed at all? http://www.hollywoodactorprep.com/blog/2008/11/latimes-blog-on-actors-and-sag-strike-isbiased-incorrect/
Whereas Backstage Magazine (which is supposed to be FOR ACTORS!)
and
The Hollywood Reporter still have this as only title going, on the whole two-day meeting at the Screen Actors Guild, which was supposedly about whether or not to call a SAG strike:
SAG ousting chief negotiator Doug Allen
Move decreases likelihood of a strike
By Andrew Salomon and Jay A. Fernandez
Best and keep the faith; please remember to stay informed…
Dana
And please share this article with your friends, and on Facebook, and other social sites. Actors, and all artists, can only become able to speak for themselves, with knowledge and solidarity.
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Update #2
Oh dear.
Another change!!!
Now, The Hollywood Reporter has a new article on the SAG Board (a link ) meeting and it appears to be an article with the goal of, mainly, making a defense of it’s false, prior article.
This one doesn’t have a retraction either, and no admitting of any mistake.
This one also makes actors look bad. It makes it seem as if the heads of SAG are “oh so sneaky”…Is that why their article wound up not to be true. Are they trying to say, if not for these sneaky actors, then Doug Allen would have been out and the writers wouldn’t have looked like liars. Or bad reporters, writing inaccuracies before fact-checking. This article seems to have, as its main goal, making sure that the reporters aren’t to blame for publishing false article.
Sorry. They still are.
Oddly, this Hollywood Reporter article is a reprint from a Backstage** article.
Is Backstage regarded as a source for factual news and integrity? Except that they published the original article a full-day-after-the-other-journals did, and long after it was publicly known that it just was not true! And never was nor would be!
If you look at this article, also, it makes the Screen Actors Guild leadership look awful, and the membership as well. And the board.
I ask again, isn’t Backstage an actors’ newspaper? Ostensibly. How come this reporting is so annhiliating, about us, then?
I think; calling the actors and SAG misguided, and out of control, and narcissistic; is more accurate about the mudslingers, themselves.
The proof is in the reporting.
