A short critique of the entertainment news industry

When it comes to news of any kind there are varying degrees of complexity, understanding, angle, focus and insight. The way that The Times covers a topic is vastly different, and some would argue superior, to say the way in which The Sun or The Daily Mail might cover the same story. This is a reality for entertainment news just as much as it is for any other news category, from politics to fashion. For this reason, it’s sort of important to look at the relative differences to distinguish good entertainment news from bad entertainment noise, which seems to clog up web pages and search results courtesy of certain news providers, as well as TV channels, newspapers and magazines.

One of the biggest differentiators when it comes to delivering entertainment news is the level of dedication to or interest in quality. Whether it’s the quality or readability of the writing itself or the quality of the topic behind the news, it’s an important factor to look at.

Obviously there is a market for both low quality writing and poor quality stories, however, there is also the possibility that this is just a self perpetuating circumstance as opposed to a necessity for sales and circulation. Celebrity rag magazines, for example,  would continue to sell if they threw in the occasional piece on a genuinely good up and coming band instead of the latest flop from X-Factor.

The reality is that mass media has always been interested in celebrity. The problem is that the celebrities that the media are interested in are increasingly moronic and lacking in quality output so there’s more and more idiot hole entertainment news chasing idiot hole entertainment. This has marginalised great music and movies because they are not sensational enough to boost newspaper sales or internet traffic.

An offshoot of the disinterested in quality “style” of entertainment news is low value content; simply writing any old tat just to get it out there without taking the time to research the content properly or provide insight into the content matter. Another point to add to this is that there are many entertainment news providers that simply focus on churning out high volumes of content just to be seen to be saying something or to live up to the online requirement for ever increasing volumes of fresh content, irrespective of its merits.

However, on the flip side of this there are also good quality independent entertainment news providers that don’t have the resources to produce enough content to make an impact. With the glass ceiling in place to keep independent providers out of the industry, a lack of content can make them look tin-pot and slightly amateurish, marginalising well thought out and researched content.

One of the biggest concerns when it comes to entertainment news releases is the influence of agents pushing populist or well backed entertainment on the press. With the deeper pockets of bigger organisations distributing products, it’s easy for news providers to be influenced to push those products over higher quality releases.

However, there are also many distributions that just have poor taste. This can be as a result of a lack of understanding of the subject or no real love of or interest in it. Either way, the result is poor, which is passed down to consumers that are all too easily influenced by what the publications might say.

While integrity and dedication to quality will help to bring more real value to the entertainment news world, there also needs to be a seismic shift in the funding and editorial decisions that back up mass media to ensure that more good books get read, more people are interested in going to the theatre, more great bands are rewarded for their brilliant work and less funds get sloshed off to the moronosphere celebrity wasters that clutch hard at the teat of bad entertainment news. While the public has got a pretty big responsibility stake in that shift, it will only happen if more publications add quality as well as sensationalised sheep fodder.