Could someone please explain to me how any self-respecting journalist go to work for a trade publication? You've become a prostitute. You are only allowed to write on stuff that the industry permits to you. You've handed over your manhood at the door and you don't get it back until you leave.

Trade papers are all whores. Those who work for them are whores. Trades never do any serious investigation of their industries. They cheerlead. They don't investigate news.

Well, the LAT's should be a good preparation for working in the trades because the LAT's entertainment coverage is essentially trade journalism. It's journalism on bended knee before the Dillers, Geffens, of Hollywood.

Missing from this report is that Lowry - also the author of at least 2 "official" X-Files companion books - jumped to the L.A. Times FROM Variety a few years ago. He's just returning to his old haunt...

Brian Lowry is the best reporter and columnist writing today AND he comes from the old school of journalism... he doesn't care who he pisses off because there’s always another source to feed him information. If there's a story to be told, he's going to tell it, and if he can ruin some bigwig's day doing it - that's a bonus. Variety was very smart to get him back.

"Could someone please explain to me how any self-respecting journalist go to work for a trade publication? You've become a prostitute. You are only allowed to write on stuff that the industry permits to you. You've handed over your manhood at the door and you don't get it back until you leave."

How distresing.

Still I've managed over the years to hang onto my "manhood" somehow.

Anyone who can refer to anyone working at a trade journal as a "prostitute" clearly doesn't read very much or just has the blinders on.

There are good, bad, and mediocre trade journals just as their are good, bad, and mediocre daily newspapers. For example, a trade journal like Ad Age is better than many daily newspapers I have read. I think the staffs of trade journals such as Ad Age would take exception to being labeled as "prostitutes."

Maybe Lowry was fed up with how the LA Times is turning into the New York Times-West and finally decided to bolt when he didn't get the Rosenberg gig. Who knows?

What I do know is that Brian Lowry seesm to be a pretty good reporter. The LA Times' loss is Variety's gain...

Four words: Heather Havrilesky/Cathy Seipp.

Add them to Manohla Dargis and Calendar might be worth reading again... if I can scrape up some money to pay for it.

P.S. Lowry not getting the column slot would be like Ken Turan retiring and the L.A. Times bringing in some new person to take the top slot ahead of Manohla (who has equal footing with Turan now, btw.) Of course he had to leave. He was slapped in the face.

That said, the Hollywood trades are pretty slutty a lot of the time. Not everyone there is in the circle jerk, but...

Well then, trades defenders, please tell me all the damaging stories about the industry the trades have broken lately? I stand ready to be corrected by the facts.

Please tell me about damaging pieces published by any trade publication? Pieces that get people thrown in jail, bankrupt companies, that sort of thing. I'm waiting.

Just don't call the trades journalism. They are an arm of public relations. They have no devotion to the story. They are devoted to telling the stories their advertisers permit them to tell.

The trades consist of barely rewritten press releases about trivial matters while criminality and venality abound all around them unreported.

No self-respecting reporter would ever work for a trade except out of desperation, financial necessity or to make contacts.

John, prostitutes never like being called prostitutes. Porn stars don't like to be called prostitutes, but whether they like it or not, they are prostitutes.

Trade journalists are hos whether they embrace that definition or not. Everybody likes to ride a white horse and think himself a great person. Trades journalists may not write stories damaging to their industry. They are the equivalent of Pravda.

Who is the anchor of KCBS these days? 'cause Paul Magers, from Minneapolis, is coming over http://www.startribune.com/stories/464/4047875.html

More intemperate commentary and blanket condemnation from Luke Ford. Give it a rest, Luke.

I don't know anything about the film trades. But I can tell you as a PR professional with more than 20 years in the banking industry that some of the toughest people I've ever had to face were reporters for papers like American Banker and National Mortgage News. Both papers broke a lot of very negative stories during the S&L crisis and the bad times for banks in the early '90s.

I don't know of anyone in my business who expects an easy time when the phone rings and it's the American Banker on the line. They may not be out to get you in quite the way Forbes reporters often seem to be (fairness be damned, in some cases), but they're routinely tough and tend to call it as they see it, just like their colleagues at the NYT, WSJ or, yes, the LAT.

Just one industry, to be sure, but I can only tell what I know.

Tim, publicists are paid liars, like most trial lawyers.

"The trades consist of barely rewritten press releases about trivial matters"

Sounds like "Morning Report."

Lowry was too good for the Times -- far more qualified than Rosenberg. What kind of money can Peter Bart be paying him, though?

Calendar couldn't possibly hire Lowry as a critic. Knowledgeable, yes... but boring as hell, with no visible sense of humor. Can you imagine a TV critic with no sense of humor? I can, but it's not a pretty image. He is in his element reporting, and should keep at it; the guy is incapable of a truly provocative opinion.

In other words, sorry, folks, but this is way different from passing over Manohla for a vacant Turan job. It's more like passing over Robert Welkos for the Turan job.

Like the sound of your own voice much, Luke?

By the way, Hanna, KCBS' current 11 p.m. anchors are Harold Greene and Laura Diaz. Looks like Greene will be pushed back to the early evening to make room for Magers' arrival. Magers is being paid big bucks to come to L.A., but it's worth it for CBS-- not only are they staffing KCBS with a strong anchor, but they're eliminating their chief competition in Minneapolis (where Magers, on the NBC affiliate, competes with the CBS station).

The Magers news now has its own post -- thanks for the tip, Hanna and Mike.

Tim, John and David (Poland), it's always great to hear the voices of real-world experience weigh in. Luke, I've never read the Hollywood trades as closely as many others have, but I've read plenty of hard-hitting pieces in trade pubs of various kinds. In any case, I think there is plenty of valid journalism other than stories that "damage an industry." And as I understand it, Brian is going to be a TV critic -- and I have no reason to think he won't be critical.

What was Ehrenstein thinking?

Thanks for playing ump there, kevin. Maybe you should post a "If you drink or inhale, don't post," sign.

While consumer publications don't have the space or the resources to cover the nitty gritty details of the entertainment business, the trades are the place to go deep inside and explain what it all means. Who's making money and who's not. Whose job is safe--and who's heading to the chopping block. Why some shows are canceled, and the reason why certain films have flopped. Some stories are positive, while most others manage to piss someone off. Just like any publication covering any beat.
Check out any press tour, or go backstage at an awards program. It's the trade press (and their business-oriented brethren at the newspapers) that ask the tough questions.
Much of the consumer folk, meanwhile, are too busy chasing down whether or not Ben Affleck really slept with a prostitute.
There's a real discussion to be had somewhere about the pros and cons of entertainment business coverage--but simply dismissing the trade segment as "whores" makes for a useless debate.

I trust the reviews in the trades far more than I do the ones in the LAT, which are in the sway of being PC or whatever little darling Manhola loves this week. The trades are more brutal than the LATimes, any day. Luke, wipe off the froth.

I base my opinions on the two Hollywood trade papers Variety and Hollywood Reporter in part on Cathy Seipp's article on the trades for Buzz magazine around 1993, on Dave Robb's two resignations from the Hollywood Reporter because the publisher killed unfriendly stories, on Dave Robb's LA Weekly cover story on Peter Bart (editor of Variety), on Amy Wallace's devastating portrayal of Peter Bart in Los Angeles magazine, and on David Shaw's LAT's article on the trades in February 2001.

Gosh, Luke, thanks for reminding me of the old adage, "Never tussle with a skunk."

"What was Ehrenstein thinking?"

You rang?

May I help you?

So in other words Luke Ford, you've never even looked at a Variety or Hollywood Reporter but are willing to pass judgment. A fine reporter, I'm sure.

Of course I've read them extensively.

I cited many sources for my views. I'd add the HIT AND RUN for how Variety and Peter Bart operate.

Let's be more productive. Will Brian Lowry have more or less freedom at Variety? In which ways?

I would like to draw a parallel between this rant and the recent threads here about Gawker/Elizabeth Speier's in-passing L.A. commentaries. Namely, that while luke ford is a real person, lukeford.net - in the proud Aussie tradition of Steve Dunleavy, Peter Brennan and Kerry Packer - is in my humble opinion something of a cultivated online persona. Loud, extreme, exaggerated. Stirs the drink whenever it comes to negative opinion expressing. If only to keep the amount of unique blog visitors high.

Meanwhile, I agree with (gracious) Variety staffer Mike above that there is a critical, far-reaching discussion to be had about this. It sounds like a perfect Charlie Rose hour to me. How does Peter Bart, Robert Dowling, Tim McLouglin and Henri Behar at the big table sound? Charlie could always sit between Bart and Dowling if necessary.

I remember all the stories on Luke's list as good ones (except for the Seipp pieces, which I don't remember). All found flaws in the way the trades cover Hollywood, and Shaw has reported on weaknesses in how the Times covers Hollywood. The stories, as I recall, do not conclude that everyone who works for the trades must be a prostitute, that they can only cover what the industry allows or that they never do any investigating. As for Lowry's freedom, it reads to me like he's changing job roles -- from reporter to critic-columnist -- so it's almost not comparable. Maybe someone with knowledge of Variety can weigh in on what kind of freedom the critics have.

"Maybe someone with knowledge of Variety can weigh in on what kind of freedom the critics have."

What kind of freedom do critics for ANY publication have?

Precious little. (Jonathan Rosenbaum is especially eloquent on this point in his book Movie Wars)

Todd McCarthy calls his own shots. Always has. Yet "coventional wisdom" still seeps in as in his deeply strange (ie.anti-French) review of Elephant.

Remember the George Christy scandal at the Hollywood Reporter? Everyone knew that this type of behavior had long been par for the course at the trades.

New Times LA columnist Rick Barrs writes: "A former top editor at one of the trades marveled at The Finger's naïveté about the Hollywood Reporter. "It's a fucking trade paper, and a trade paper's a whorehouse. What did David Robb expect? He knew he was working for whores. "I like Anita Busch, and I think she wants to do the right thing, but the Hollywood Reporter ain't the goddamned New York Times. Whether she likes it or not, an industry ass-kisser like George Christy's more what the Reporter's about than David Robb. Hos are damn sure going to protect their own."" (New Times LA, 5/3/01)

Kevin -- minor clarification. Brian Lowry wrote opionated, reporting-based columns for the Times. So it's not a huge transition.

Good point, Bob. Thanks

Two words- Cathy Seipp. I'm sure the LAT would have to choke on their own PC bile to do this, but I get the feel that if they paid her reasonably and managed to get over the fact that the best media reporter/pundit in America has been right under their feet the past ten years, they might actually be able to hire her. Might actually push me to subscribe to the damn rag tho I'd still have to think about it hard.

And what, praytell, does Cathy have to offer that they don't get already from Norah Vincent?

I can't say whether Cathy Seipp is "the best media/reporter in America" or not. I can say that whoever penned the pseudonymous column about the LAT for Buzz magazine once wrote some garbage about my friend Mike Wilmington that was false, petty, and cruel. No editor would allow such a person to handle a major beat at a leading newspaper.

Dear Mr. Sheehan,

Precisely how was that Buzz magazine article, written as you well know by Cathy Seipp, "false, petty, and cruel."

Or are you just going to make a fiery charge and not back it up? I contacted about a dozen reporters and editors at the LA Times for comment on Cathy Seipp and not one had the balls to go on the record, though most of them are happy to cowardly trash her anonymously.

So put up the goods, Mr. Sheehan.

Luke, you are insufferable, irritating as all get out, and a genuinely politically incorrect pain in the ass. Please don't ever change.