The Boston Globe mailed it in

April 30, 2007

Right upfront, I’ll let you know that I pitched the Boston Globe on a series of articles and reviews of this year’s IFFBoston event. I was informed that the paper and online arm of the Globe were already all set to cover the festival and my writing wasn’t needed.

What a crock. Trying very hard to avoid the syndrome of sour grapes, I want you to go look at the Globe’s coverage of the film festival. Essentially it’s just a retyping of the information that was provided by the festival program and press materials. There is very little objective description, nothing specific about any of the films, the audience or the experience. And a completely halfway effort on the Globe’s part.

Oh, yes they did cover Menino’s appearance at the film On Broadway, and they did provide links to all the trailers. But they didn’t give a REVIEW, they just did a PREVIEW of the event. Maybe I’m mistaken, but I thought newspapers covered NEWS for the most part. And again I might be mistaken, but is something that hasn’t happened yet NEWS?

The paper does a great job with book REVIEWS, and concert REVIEWS, and even some theater REVIEWS. But I’m disappointed that they dropped the ball on this important event.

I’m further disappointed because in three IFFBoston blog entries I have given readers 10 times more information than the Globe presented their subscribers and online readers.

I’m also disappointed because I was willing to do this work at their prevailing freelance rate, which would have freed up their regular staff to do other projects for the paper. Well, I guess I’m wrong in thinking they should have used me for this project because they actually did get all their other work done by mailing in their coverage of the IFFBoston event.

Just annoyed at a publication and editorial staff for which I had some respect.

More to come…