Criminal Minds

(RABID CRIMINAL MINDS FANS TRACK DOWN ENTERTAINMENT JOURNALISTS.)
I read an article this morning that was interesting to me. In “Lines Can Be Crossed as Blog Power Surges,” Nellie Andreeva writes:

Some bloggers have become as powerful as the leading TV critics in shaping the online community’s opinions of new and exciting series. But that growing influence also has brought out a dark side.

This “dark side” comment was intriguing to me as I write a tv blog. So I read on. She mentions the impact that bloggers had on the fate of CBS’s Jericho. The network was set to cancel the show, but after the surge of support shown on blogs, they decided to keep it.

And with the bloggers’ power growing, the networks and studios increasingly are catering to them, giving them access to their stars and producers. Web writers have become a growing presence at industry events like the Television Critics Assn.’s press tours. To promote its lineup, the Sci Fi Channel last month hosted an exclusive press event for bloggers and webmasters who went behind the scenes of the channel’s series.

And so the dark side? There are tons of tv blogs out there. You can find several for your favorite show. So to stand out, Andreeva says, some bloggers rush to be the first out there, the first with a piece of news. But in their rush, they don’t go through the “rigourous” confirmation process that entertainment journalists do. She cites one example of a blogger who reported that Geena Davis was all-but confirmed as the replacement for Mandy Patinkin.
Not only that, these bloggers can be fierce. She and other print journalists waited for confirmation that Joe Mantegna had joined the Criminal Minds cast. The announcement from executive producer Ed Bernero came through the Criminal Minds Fanatic blog. She wrote of the announcement and referred to the blog.

The following day, I got an exasperated cell phone call at 6 a.m. from Jill Davidson, the woman behind the Criminal Minds Fanatic blog that hosted the posting. It was garnered by a slew of angry midnight voice messages on my and other Hollywood Reporter editors’ office phones and more harassing phone calls to our offices Monday morning. All because Davidson felt she didn’t get enough credit.

Andreeva writes that with the increased power of the bloggers, they seem to be getting more agressive. “[W]hen is it a fan, and when does it become a fanatic?” By “it,” I assume she means the bloggers.

As trade journalists covering television, do we have to fear criticizing shows because their fans can get offended and, being Web-savvy, can track us down and come after us?…Yes, the love of its fans is a show’s biggest asset, and the Internet has made it easier for that fan base to stay close together and grow. But it also has made the small step from love to obsession a hell of a lot easier.

At some points, I agree with Nellie Andreeva: there are so many blogs. You do want to be the first one to have a particular piece of information posted. But I kind of take offense to that personally. I always check to see if something is true before I write it. If it’s a rumor, I make that clear. I did write that CBS was considering Geena Davis, but I also said that this wasn’t confirmed. It’s interesting to know the rumors sometimes.
Also, I’m not sure if she’s being sarcastic when she talks about fearing for her safety. Is she afraid that if she says that Criminal Minds is a bad show, a million fans will show up at her office and protest? I know there are obsessed people, but the problem isn’t really what they’re obsessed about - the problem is in their minds. If they weren’t obsessed with televison or celebrities, it would be something else.
So I know some individuals do become fixated on certain things: but does the average person stay on his computer everyday reading and rereading blogs about his favorite show? Is that all he thinks about? Does he have nothing else to do in life that he would stalk a reporter who said that his show should be cancelled? It just seems that Andreeva makes a huge generalization about both the people who write blogs and the people who read them. She assumes that the readers are obsessed fanatics with nothing else to do (which I would think would be only a tiny fraction of the readers). She implies that the writers are not “real” writers, that they don’t check facts, or even care if what they write is true, as long as it’s first. Yes, I’m sure that there are blogs that do that. But as with anything, you have to evaluate your sources and not believe every rumor in a business that is made up of rumors.
The real purpose for blogs, I think, is to let fans talk, agree and disagree, and complain. It is definately wrong to threaten violence on reporters, but what’s wrong with a group of people indulging themselves in talk about something they enjoy?
I have just one more thing to add: aren’t journalists supposed to have thick skins? Do they really get upset over annoying/angry phone calls? Do they expect no one to disagree (sometimes loudly) with them?
Check out the article: what do you think?