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Hollywood Spin
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Wireless Wonder
A report on ABC’s 20/20 is the latest to question the merits of the numerous trailers, movie ads and DVD boxes that pull quotes from Earl Dittman, the ubiquitous editor-in-chief of Wireless Magazines.
Wednesday, August 27, 2003
By Richard Horgan
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In the latest in an ongoing series of opinion pieces known as “Give Me A Break,” Barbara Walters’ 20/20 co-host John Stossel bemoaned the practice by Hollywood movie studios of hyping mediocre summer movies with quotes from movie reviewers such as Houston-based journalist Earl Dittman.
In recent years, Dittman has become a whipping boy of sorts for media critics, generating a string of increasingly vitriolic coverage in David Poland’s The Hot Button, USA Today, Movie Poop Shoot, The Toronto Star and Hollywood Bitchslap.
In some ads, Dittman is quoted as being from Wireless Magazine while in other instances his affiliation is referred to as Wireless Magazines, plural. Both to a certain degree are correct. Wireless Magazine is one of five publications Dittman oversees and writes for as full-time editor-in-chief out of offices in Alief, Texas, a western suburb of Houston, while Wireless Magazines refers to the parent company name of a corporation whose other aggregate titles are Smash, Simply Country, The Rhythm and Groove, and Behind The Screens.
Each one of these magazines is generally co-branded with the logo of a regional distribution outlet, be it a movie theater chain, video store or a radio station. In many cases, content written by Dittman appears in identical form in editions of several of the company’s different titles.
Although much of the derision expressed by Dittman’s critics has come from the fact that they have been unable to locate a web site or hard copy for any of his publications, they are apparently not that hard to find in markets such as San Francisco. Perhaps the problem for Dittman is that the magazines are relatively scarce in the concentrated media hometowns of New York and Los Angeles.
| While people have been quick to criticize Dittman, which to a great extent is inevitable given the saturated visibility level of his comments, equal culpability might well be directed at the Hollywood studios. After all, some sort of time-tested bottom line box office dollar motivation (or workplace survival instinct) is fueling this tendency among marketing executives.
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In many ways, Dittman’s family of publications bears a strong resemblance to the widely circulated Sunday newspaper insert Parade Magazine, which bears the imprint of each individual local newspaper in which it appears. Last year, the Boston Globe revealed that the magazine’s insanely popular column on the inside front page, “Walter Scott’s Personality Parade,” has always been written by other journalists under this entirely fictitious byline. Currently, the title of America’s best read (pseudonymous) columnist is held by former New York Times Magazine editor Ed Klein, who took over duties from Lloyd Shearer in 1991.
| Dittman has been writing about movies and entertainment for the past twenty years. Prior to founding Wireless Magazines, he was being quoted in association with Tune-In Publications, a music industry newsletter service launched by East Coast radio personality Jonathan Dark in the early 1980s. Historically speaking, the first prominent Dittman quote to be co-opted by a Hollywood movie campaign appears to have been in connection with Heart and Souls, a 1983 comedy starring Robert Downey Jr., Charles Grodin and recent litigant Tom Sizemore.
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In addition to his full-time duties in Houston, Dittman also finds time to share his byline with other outlets, many of them outside of the United States. In contrast to his much-maligned critical persona, Dittman’s interviews of movie personalities are on par with many of his press junket colleagues.
Recent outside articles include a piece on Salma Hayek’s Frida in the August 2003 issue of Direct TV programming guide Satellite Direct, a profile of Leonardo Di Caprio for the UK magazine Controversy, several features for Glasgow’s Sunday Herald and a translated chat with Reese Witherspoon about Legally Blonde 2 in a Norwegian publication.
| Most intriguingly, Dittman traveled to Mule Creek State Prison outside of Sacramento a while back to talk with imprisoned rap impresario Suge Knight for an article in the Arizona-based men’s magazine Razor.
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Dittman is also a member of the Dutch syndication service International Feature Agency, which would seem to provide another avenue to re-purpose quotes and interviews gathered at Hollywood press junkets for clients as far away as Africa.
| Initially, 20/20 wanted to do much more of an in-depth expose on Hollywood press junkets and the reciprocal nature of the relationship between studio publicists and attending reporters. In fact, when segment producer Frank Mastropolo first spoke to FilmStew, it was because he wanted to compare the full text of a June 20th review of Alex and Emma by Todd Gilchrist with a subsequent pull quote that appeared in ads for the movie. In this case, he found the quote to be commensurate with the overall gist of the review.
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Mastropolo says although a number of entertainment journalists he spoke to privately slammed Dittman and his perceived brethren, none of them would agree to an on-camera interview for fear of alienating the Hollywood studios. In addition, those same studios turned down his requests for permission to film a Hollywood hotel press junket, which just goes to show that the recent footage of The Battle Of Shaker Heights junket that was shown on the final episode of the HBO TV series Project Greenlight is a rare exception to the rule.
Several years ago, when a pair of Sony marketing executives were caught red-handed for their invention of fictitious movie critic David Manning, additional attention was focused on critics such as Dittman and the fact that their quotes are used to market a movie only when Ebert & Roeper, the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly and other A-list reviewers have nothing good to say about a film.
| As a result, many of today’s moviegoers share the feelings of Chicago blogger “dirtynerdluv”, who states that “if Earl Dittman is anywhere near the poster blurbs or in the TV commercials, I’m skipping the movie.” Similar sentiments were expressed by many of the 20/20 viewers who posted messages on an abc.com discussion board soliciting comments about Stossel’s broadcast.
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So why do Hollywood studios continue to mine prolific movie-loving reporters such as Dittman, Jeff Craig of Sixty-Second Preview and others to market their films rather than doing away with quotes altogether for a critical bomb? Probably because it would upset the balance of test screenings, focus groups and opening weekend movie going rituals if a blank space were to greet the well conditioned eyes and ears of film fans instead of the usual diet of superlatives.
Interestingly enough, Dittman apparently has a personal press agent who often liaises with those in dire need of his widely distributed words of wisdom. But perhaps that has more to do with the fact that he himself has grown tired of dealing with the unwanted limelight that has grown out of his self-professed love of Hollywood movies.
| From Eastwood To Ueberroth: Kirstie Wilde, the former Los Angeles TV anchorwoman whose exclusive interview with Clint Eastwood in The Carmel Pine Cone was the topic of last week’s column, will moderate an August 28th discussion and web cast in San Diego with gubernatorial candidate Peter Ueberroth.
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Although Wilde knows Ueberroth from his Summer Olympics days and recent business dealings in Carmel with Eastwood, the request for her to moderate the discussion came via Paul Williams, a TV cameraman she worked with in Monterey in 1990 who is now a media strategist. Wilde’s “Carry The Torch” forum with Ueberroth will be web cast on Thursday August 28th between 12:00pm and 12:45pm from the Double Tree Hotel in Mission Valley. The audience will be made of people selected via lottery following their signup for the event via Ueberroth’s web site.
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