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Topic: Letters Sent to Romenesko
Date/Time: 2/23/2006 9:18:34 PM
Title: Ebert feels honored -- and offended
Posted By: Jim Romenesko
 
From ROGER EBERT, Chicago Sun-Times: I share Susan Wloszczyna’s mystification about the methods and reasoning of the Duke University study. The authors need to explain what they were looking for and what they think they have found. I find myself listed, for example, as one of the critics providing "the most information about poorer movies." I am greatly honored. But I am not listed among those providing the "most information" about “finer flicks." Now I am offended. The press release says the study is about "the meaning of silence by professional film critics." Does that mean I speak out about bad films but remain silent about good ones? How can that be, when I review virtually every movie of any note that opens nationally, good or bad, and last year, for example, published 287 reviews? My score should be more or less the same in both categories. An excellent critic like David Anson of Newsweek is listed as providing "more information" about better movies. But of course in Newsweek he has space to review far fewer films, and it stands to reason that he would select the ones he admires. Perhaps they mean I provide “more information” in the sense that my reviews of bad movies are longer than the average review of a bad movie. But at an average of 900 words per review, all of my reviews are longer than average. The authors of the study say they began with the Variety review as their baseline. Does this mean that Variety, and not the critics under study, define the movie as good or bad? In that case, would one of my positive reviews be counted as negative if Variety was negative on it? This study seems to be have been conducted without any knowledge of the real world film critics inhabit, and to incorporate statistics that seem flawed, if not downright goofy. [Permalink]

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