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Topic: Letters Sent to Romenesko
Date/Time: 2/23/2006 8:57:55 AM
Title: Three profs and a flawed study
Posted By: Jim Romenesko
 
From DAVID POLAND, MovieCityNews.com: I have to say that I am flabbergasted that three professors would be wasting their time and their university's resources on a study that is so completely flawed from the premise though the analysis.

For one thing, critics don't get assigned a movie after everyone else has registered an opinion. But even more importantly, most of the outlets mentioned have multiple critics and at each one the process of assignment is different. Roger Ebert is the only critic mentioned who does more than half the reviews at any of the papers mentioned. In most cases, the critic mentioned is covering a third or fewer releases, so their "silence" is expected on most movies.

When Elvis Mitchell was "silent" about a film, it meant that A.O. Scott or Stephen Holden or another staffer was likely writing about that film. It had absolutely noting to do with his opinion of the film, assumed or
otherwise.

Ironically, only on a site like my own, where readership may know that I've seen a movie and not commented at all, can they make any kind of inference as this silly study suggests. But even then, how do my readers know whether I have seen a movie unless I tell them? I don't see every release. So my "silence" about The Pink Panther was appropriate last week... because I had not seen the movie.

Mark Caro was the second string critic at the Chicago Tribune during the period of this study. Of course, he wasn't reviewing most of the Oscar movies. That was not his job. That was Mike Willmington's job. You can be sure that Mark would have loved to have written about every Oscar movie and every great movie he saw. But they weren't paying him to do that. There is no inference to make.

The scariest thing is that these "researchers" could not have spoken to any of the critics they named - not one - without finding out how flawed their concept was. So I am doubly scared when the release about it suggests that they are going to apply this false premise to other leisure activities. Some poor child could have had a scholarship, but instead we get this idiotic study. Cruel world. [Permalink]

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