Bernie Weinraub's Bad Review

Poor Bernard Weinraub's all upset because the New York Times—his old paper— gave his very first play, which is about the Holocaust, a bad, mean-spirited review, and he went running to his old bestie Nikki Finke to complain. He's upset because, since he used to work at the Times, the paper assigned a freelancer to review it, and the review was so awful (at least in Bernie's eyes) that he simply had to assume a conspiracy was afoot. After all, such publications as Newsday and the New York Sun (which, let's face it, would probably give a rave review to a backyard performance by a bunch of goats if it was about the Holocaust) liked it! So what the hey, Times?

The Times was sort of in a pickle here, as Nikki notes. If they gave it a rave review, they'd be hit with allegations of conflict of interest. If they gave it a bad review, Bernie would claim conspiracy. He's also added another layer of conspiracy by noting that the freelancer in question had never written for the Times before. But how many first-time playwrights even get a review in the Times? Um, not many! So maybe Bernie should take his bad Times review and stop whining.

Since we're here, isn't it worth revisiting Bernard Weinraub's whole semi-tawdry relationship with the New York Times? Weinraub covered Hollywood for the paper at the same time he was married to a studio chief, Sony Pictures' Amy Pascal. As Mickey Kaus noted back in 2003: "Suppose a New York Times reporter were married to the owner of a major league baseball team. Would the Times let that reporter cover the Commissioner of Baseball?" Um, no. Likewise, no one could ever figure out why Bernard Weinraub allowed to cover the industry his wife had such a big stake in.

The Times, in its infinite wisdom, allowed Weinraub to pen a piece upon his departure from the paper in January 2005 that once and for all encapsulated just what bugged so many people about Bernard Weinraub. The piece was called "14 Years Later, My Hollywood Ending."

Clearly, I stayed too long on my beat, clinging to a notion that I could sidestep conflicts of interest by avoiding direct coverage of Sony, and learning too late why wiser heads counsel against even the appearance of conflict. But my marriage, and some of the events that tumbled out of it, also taught me something about the ferocity of a culture in which the players can be best friends one day and savage you the next.

When I finally asked to be taken off the movie beat in 2000, I laughed and said I felt like the Duke of Windsor. But I quickly caught a lesson in how chilly life as a former movie correspondent could be. In the past, I'd written about Jeffrey Katzenberg, then president of the Walt Disney Company. He returned every call quickly and often phoned me; he dished over pasta at Locanda Veneta about all the studios in town and became such a pal that I once showed him off-the-record comments made about him by Michael Eisner. That was wrong and foolish, and years later I still regret it. As soon as I stopped covering movies, Mr. Katzenberg stopped responding to phone calls. I was surprised but shouldn't have been.

If that came as a surprise, exactly what planet did he thinking he was working on?

Then there was that bit about how he was jealous about everyone who made more money than he did. Maybe he should've taken the poverty beat!

Journalists in Washington do not feel diminished by their lower salaries. In Hollywood, many do. I did. Waiting for a valet at the Bel-Air Hotel to bring my company-leased Ford, I once stood beside a journalist turned producer who said, ''I used to drive a car like that.'' Though I'm ashamed to say it, I was soon hunting for parking spots near Orso or the Peninsula Hotel to avoid the discomfort of having a valet drive up my leased two-year-old Buick in front of some luncheon companion with a Mercedes.

For many of us on the press side, the money gap leads to resentment and envy, compounded by a conviction that studio executives and producers are no better or smarter than the journalists who cover them.

Oh that was fun. The point is, no journalist got such a free pass for as long as Bernie did. For him to be crying unfair treatment—and there wasn't any, near as we can tell—is just another insane diva moment from a man who could never figure out what was going on around him in the first place. —Doree

Why Did NY Times Pan Weinraub's Play When Most Major Media Gave It Raves? [Deadline Hollywood]
14 Years Later, My Hollywood Ending [NYT]
Hollywood's Most Conflicted Hack [Kausfiles]

Earlier: Gawker's Coverage of Bernard Weinraub

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