THB Headline (1)

The intention of this newsletter is to inform and analyze.

I found this one thing striking this morning, so I am sharing it with you. It is not meant to devalue Deadline in any way. But as I just wrote 2 sentences ago… striking.

The above is the Top 10 Trending Story list from Deadline at 3p today, Saturday, July 23, 2022.

3 dead people.
3 legal proceedings.
1 days old press release about “music residencies” on Colbert.
1 2-day old story about staff changes at NBC News.
1 ComicCon appearance by The Rock.
1 post-episode analysis of The Old Man.

The box office headline hasn’t changed since Friday, threatening not to offer insight into the box office weekend, but a Pete Hammond review of Nope. There is actually some box office analysis if you click through… but how would you know?

8 of the Top 10 slots on the front page of the site are ComicCon, but in Trending, only 1 ComicCon story, in 9th place.

Again… this is not meant as an attack on Deadline. What I find so curious about it is on what the audience for the trade paper is focused.

It’s not the film/tv industry.

To be fair, I went over to the Variety Top 10…

They got 4 ComicCon stories in their Top 10. No dead people. Box Office. 3 Music stories, with weirdly 2 about the same Bruce Springsteen ticketing situation and the #1 story right now being Kid Cudi having water bottles thrown at him at “Rolling Loud Miami.” Vince McMahon’s WWE exit. And a 3 day old junket comment from Jordan Peele “modestly” putting himself behind John Carpenter as the greatest horror director of all time.

Finally, I went to The Hollywood Reporter’s Top 10 story listing…

An eclectic, death-led group of stories… but nothing current and strikingly dominated by pieces that are from more than a week ago.

Nothing that stands as news about the industry. Not a single story.

This entry really did start as me just being struck by the lack of any news news in that Deadline Top 10, which is led at #1 by an obit for someone who I’m sure was loved by many, but who had 14 film/tv credits, the last of which was 28 years ago

We are all aware of the dominance of empty mental calories we are fed daily in all forms of media now. But I guess part of what strikes me is that I too often forget and just consume what is given me, in this industry or elsewhere.

And as I sign off, an e-mail of links from the New York Times:

Oy.

Until tomorrow…