RIP, Entertainment Weekly
Saying goodbye to a hugely influential part of my writing career.
Last week’s announcement that Entertainment Weekly, InStyle and other magazines owned by Barry Diller’s Dotdash Meredith media group would cease physical publication heralded the end of an era for many lovers of pop culture, entertainment writing and film criticism.
It was, to be honest, a long time coming. EW hadn’t been a weekly publication since 2019, when it switched its physical production to monthly. Even before that, EW had been pulling back on much of what made it a quality publication, going so far as to reduce its online writers to unpaid interns (writing for “exposure,” of course) in 2015. And, to be completely honest, I can’t remember the last time I read an issue of the magazine or visited its website; it’s been at least 5 years.
But it still is a sad day to see it shutter (it’s online presence will remain, but that online presence can’t compare to what the magazine was at its height). I can’t think of another publication that was as influential in shaping my tastes and helping me discover my voice as a writer. Throughout my undergraduate education and well into my twenties, my dream was to work in New York as an EW feature writer or critic, and I was a regular subscriber and reader for many years.
The first issue I ever read was a December 1995 edition with Toy Story on the cover (the design made it look like Buzz and Woody were reading the issue themselves, and I thought it was so cool that EW held enough cachet that Disney/Pixar would create this special piece). My parents had bought it for me, knowing both my movie obsession and my burgeoning love of writing, and I was quickly hooked.
EW was far from the first piece of film criticism or entertainment writing I regularly consumed. A family friend had purchased me a subscription to Premiere magazine* only a year or two earlier, and I loved its in-depth, film-loving writing and interviews. But truth be told, Premiere was probably a tad over my head; it was aimed at cinephiles, of which I had not yet become one. Entertainment Weekly was more accessible for my teenage brain, and its coverage extended to TV, movies and books. It had a colorful, easy-to-digest layout and the writing was often just as funny as it was insightful (the captions on EW stories were often great jokes).
I’ve written before about an adolescence where I was encouraged to only consume Christian music, movies and books. EW served as a guide for me to navigate “secular” pop culture, a gatekeeper that pointed me toward the latest and most essential film, albums and television shows. Its list-centric issues (best horror movies, best movies of the decade, etc.) provided an early syllabus for me as a growing geek, and when I began blogging, I started to incorporate its punchier, casual style into my writing. Without EW, I never would have found Ain’t It Cool News, and I’ve written before about how influential that site was on my early film writing and consumption.
Younger readers might find it hard to believe that there was a time when your local critics tended to be the only voices you heard when it came to film criticism. And I’m lucky, in that Detroit was home to Tom Long, Terry Lawson and Susan Stark at various times during my high school and college years. But EW brought national-level critics to me years before I started reading Roger Ebert. In particular, I devoured the work of Owen Gleiberman and Lisa Schwarzbaum. The fact that EW had two major critics on its payroll intrigued me, especially when the two disagreed or I disagreed with one or more of them. It helped me understand the subjectivity that is inherent to criticism. While the magazine was often a casual, breezy read, the reviews had meat and took criticism seriously. I tried to incorporate what I could from their writing and, when I started publishing actual reviews in an actual newspaper, I incorporated Entertainment Weekly’s letter grade system as my ranking tool (I’ve long-since abandoned that, believing the reviews should stand on their own).
But it wasn’t just those two critics who helped shape me. I was reading Gillian Flynn’s features for the magazine well before Gone Girl was a sensation. Ken Tucker was the first television critic whose work I followed, and Ty Burr’s work was also a must-read. Dalton Ross may currently be known for his work writing about reality TV (which I’ve never been interested in), but he’s also a tremendously funny writer, and I would often flip right to his pieces when my edition arrived in the mail. The first phone call I ever had with the woman who would become my wife was spent largely talking about Jeff Jensen’s writing about Lost (which, yes, was online, but still in those days when the website seemed like a supplement to the magazine instead of the main event). Heck, there was a period where Stephen King was a contributor, writing about pop culture, and I couldn’t think of any better endorsement for a publication than that Stephen King was willing to write for it.
And so, it’s sad to see Entertainment Weekly stop publication. It’s yet another reminder that times are changing, and that the ways we consume media and news have shifted, and not necessarily for the best.
I will always be a supporter of good print journalism. While there are many great online writers, and I understand that the shift is going to online over physical, whether I like it or not, I’m sad at what we lose when we say goodbye to newspapers and magazines. The rush to be first and get those valuable clicks too often means sloppy reporting and lazy writing, and I miss the depth of good investigative pieces and lengthy feature stories. And I miss the way that physical media could set the trends and establish the discussion instead of being a reactionary medium (David Chen’s latest Culturally Relevant podcast episode about the death of EW hits on this).
I’ll admit there’s also an existential crisis bound up in this. My bachelor’s degree is in journalism, and I got in back in 2001. This weekend, I had the opportunity to hang out with some of my former coworkers from the newspaper, and there was a sense that our careers were all a bit adrift. We’re all married and some of us have kids, and a career in journalism is no longer financially feasible. And as much as we might enjoy our current jobs, I always feel a bit sad when we leave, remembering how fulfilling and fun those days were as a reporter, when we were doing work that felt like it made a difference and required the best of us as writers. Today, most of us have ventured into careers in marketing, public relations or something unrelated, and those still in journalism are beginning to realize it’s time to move out if they want to survive. And what’s out there? Corporate writing, advertising, marketing, all of which feel like a bit soul-crushing when you used to do something as pure as reporting. I’m blessed enough to have a job I enjoy for an organization I believe in, and I’m part of a good team, but I’d be lying if I said it provided the same sense of fulfillment as I got when I was a reporter. There’s an era that’s passed, and I don’t really care for what’s replaced it.
And to get more specific, the world of film writing and pop culture/entertainment writing is still in a shift. There are great publications and critics doing great work, but the idea of working full time as a critic or writer is no longer a reality for many. Freelance or self-publication seem to be the new model, and they require a great deal more sacrifice, savvy and willingness to write for pennies (or for free), which may be possible for a writer in their twenties but are much less possible for those of us with mortgages and children. The landscape has changed so much that there’s both less pay and more competition; there are probably more people writing about film than there have been at any time in history thanks to the democratization the internet facilitated, but very few of them are being paid enough to make a career out of it, and few of them have the formal education, training or experience that used to be essential for those roles. And most of what passes for film “news” sites these days are clickbait farms and aggregators; many sites exist not to report the news but to report the news that others have already reported. And Entertainment Weekly is far from the only platform I’ve had to say goodbye to. Beloved sites like Birth.Movies.Death. and The Dissolve featured quality, in-depth writing and criticism, and yet they couldn’t stay afloat.
But I don’t think it’s all doom and gloom. One thing I would really like to do in the coming months and years is build on some work I did for my master’s thesis and discuss the current state of film criticism, both the content of it and the form. There’s a shift happening that is exciting to watch, as writers find new platforms for their works, but also as the conversation moves to video and audio, mediums that I think provide exciting new opportunities. I’ve been thinking about this a great deal lately, and I’m thinking that part of this newsletter may start addressing that beginning in the spring.
But the death of Entertainment Weekly made me nostalgic and sad for the good ol’ days. We’re losing what was once a vital piece of entertainment journalism and film critic, and I’m sad to see it go.