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..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington



When it comes to media gossip, the website journalists trust most is the one James Romenesko has organized at www.poynter.org. Simply referred to as “Romenesko,” it covers our self-absorbed world in a straight-forward and rarely opinionated manner, primarily by linking to stories in other publications, offering a forum for letters and other commentary, and letting the words speak for themselves.

So, when Monday morning’s column led with an item provocatively titled, “Critic: Why is Weinraub still covering Hollywood for NYT?,” and linked an article in the new Los Angeles magazine, it naturally attracted the attention of reporters toiling in the vineyards of La La Land. RJ Smith’s Media column asked a question the entirety of the Hollywood-based press corps has been pondering for most of the last six years, especially those during which the widely respected Times reporter has been married to Columbia Pictures chairman Amy Pascal. As far as appearances of conflicts of interests go in the media game – as opposed to having one’s work influenced by obvious conflicts of interest, of which Weinraub has neither been tried nor convicted -- it wasn’t even close.

Nonetheless, as Smith argues, the NYT marches to the sound of its own drummer. If the honchos in the New York office don’t consider Weinraub’s presence on the entertainment beat as broaching even the appearance of a conflict – Columbia-parent Sony, after all, has its hand in every pie worth tasting in Hollywood -- then, in their minds, it simply doesn’t exist. Asking the newly married Weinraub to accept another West Coast-based news beat would have been tantamount to admitting its reporters are fallible, and that concept really didn’t come into play until Jayson Blair was revealed as a fraud.

Despite a recent admission of paragraph borrowing, Weinraub’s present situation bears no similarity to the Blair case or any subsequent cans of worms at the Times. His reporting has been distinguished – if far from infallible – and it has helped make the NYT a must-read among movers and shakers in L.A.

Here’s part of what Smith had to say:

“So why, given a career that includes great reporting from Vietnam and deft accounts of presidential campaigns, a career that need not have culminated yet, why should Weinraub's reputation seem up for grabs? The answer begins in 1997, when he married Amy Pascal, now chairman of Columbia Pictures. As a result, the Times changed his beat. Today he doesn't quite cover the film industry, but he doesn't quite not cover it, either. He is now the paper's West Coast entertainment reporter, writing about television, music, and such epiphenomena as Schwarzenegger and the Anthony Pellicano prosecution. Although Times editors believe they have solved the problem of conflict of interest, they may be the only ones who do.”

That much, at least, is absolutely true. Few, if any, journalists or executives bought the ruse. But, since there wasn’t anything anyone could do about it – and no one wanted to piss off the Times by suggesting there was a problem -- they learned to grin and bear it.

If nothing else, his continued presence provided a convenient excuse for bad press in the nation’s most influential paper. The entertainment industry is so devoid of ethical behavior, after all, that its players are always willing to believe the worst of their peers in other industries. Why wouldn’t they? Good business for one is good business for all.

For journalists, though, the question posed in Smith’s column remains far more knotty.

Primarily, this is because of the NYT’s status in the world of journalism. It is partially explained by Sharon Waxman’s stated rationale for leaving a newspaper and a job she loved -- covering Hollywood for the Washington Post -- to accept what essentially is the same gig at the NYT: “Now, maybe, I’ll get my calls answered.”

As a former correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, and a freelancer for other publications of substance, I can attest to the fact that covering Hollywood for any other daily publication than the NYT, LAT, Wall Street Journal and the trades (USA Today, too, if one takes into account access to celebrities) can be a chore best described as Sisyphean. It’s not that we merely get lied to all the time – everyone does – it’s that the studios’ marketing departments have made it their job to make us feel as if we’re inherently inferior to reporters who work for those publications, and, like the junket press, merely another cog in the star-maker machinery. Publicists accomplish this by not returning phone calls and routinely denying reasonable requests for access to filmmakers, actors and executives, unless it fits their marketing strategy. (Nothing personal; it’s strictly business. Independent publicists do a much better job for their clients.)

Typical of Los Angeles magazine, though, none of these larger ramifications were addressed. Essentially, the piece was about celebrity, which, along with stories about the west side’s best dry cleaners and spas, is what the mag does best. Mostly, the columnist appeared unhappy that Weinraub’s continued presence as an entertainment reporter proved New Yorkers might not take L.A. “seriously,” as if we needed some kind of validation from the NYT that its Brahmins like us, they really, really like us.

“They had brought in Weinraub to show they were taking Hollywood more seriously,” Smith wrote. “Yet by leaving him in, the Times has suggested what they really think of L.A.—that it's a lightweight town, that it's about amusement, not real news. If a White House correspondent married a member of the administration, would the Times leave that person in? It's hard to believe they would.”

Yeah, it’s hard to believe … almost as difficult to believe as the events that led to the public disgrace of the NYT and its senior management in 2003.