Entertainment Journalism by Ben Falk

Author:Ben Falk [Falk, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Media Studies
ISBN: 9781317233244
Google: cnhQDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-03-09T04:08:14+00:00

Finding stuff

A few years ago, a Hollywood-based paparazzo had a very lucrative career following a bunch of young Australian actors on Twitter and then showing up at the places they said they were eating/partying so he could get their picture. Because they were new to town, but already established stars down under, he had minimal competition and was able to flog the photos to the Australian celebrity magazine market. One can still do that – and of course people do – but you have to be a bit cannier if you want to grab an exclusive. There’s also the dark side of this practice. Between 2008 and 2009 a group of young Angelenos burgled a series of homes belonging to high-profile stars when they were out. How did they know? They checked their whereabouts on social media.

Still, the direct line you have to celebrities and their daily lives via social media means that you have a broader scope for thinking about interesting questions to ask people, or potential ideas to pitch that might tie in with a pop cultural trend you find on Instagram. If nothing else, there are just a shedload more famous or almost-famous people to write about. Do you follow the next Justin Bieber on YouTube? What’s trending? There’s also useful tools like #journorequest, a hashtag to help you find a contributor or maybe some information you haven’t been able to dig up. Embracing the community side of social media is vital. It can feel very isolating sometimes, and the negativity that it breeds often makes it appear like an inhospitable place. But if you come at it with vigour and precision, there is much to be found out there.

It has also become a repository for the lazy journalist to turn a quick story around. User-generated content has been rebranded as social content now, but social media is a quick way to gather vox pops or filter opinions about a hot story of the day. In lieu of getting someone on the phone, ripping celebrity tweets or Facebook posts or Instagram pictures with their captions have become stories by themselves. If one’s being honest, this can be useful. The media environment doesn’t pause these days, and if you’re asked by your boss to turn a story round quickly, access to high-profile ‘quotes’ are valuable. On the other hand, there’s a fear that this trivialises journalism, that it reduces the role of the journalist to a mere aggregator, that it perpetuates the view that the entertainment media is constantly cannibalising itself. As with most things, it’s a little from column A and a little from column B. As a journalist it’s always worth searching out that extra original something. But if you’re in a bind, then social media has provided a relatively simple get-out.

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