See where Newsarama interviews Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway over here? No, you didn't. Well, you might have read their answers to some questions...but you didn't see anything that involved Newsarama interviewing the stars.
What you saw was one of those pre-packaged print interviews (well, conference call interview, at least) that everyone slaps their name on and runs. It's basically a press release interview. It's like one of those radio interviews where your local host dubs themselves asking questions in between the pre-recorded answers from the stars and starlets of the latest mass media entertainment release.
It is nothing new and it is done everywhere across the 'net. But it sure disappoints me to see it as a newly adopted practice at Newsarama.
The same interview is available at SciFi.com (with an individual claiming to have conducted it) and chopped up for significant repackaging over at Canada.com. Other sites just grab certain bits. For instance, when I was searching for this "interview" to be posted all around the 'net, I decided to Google one of Hathaway's more unique, full answers:
HATHAWAY: Making out with him is like the yummiest lollipop, dipped in sunshine and wrapped in a masculine wrapper! That's the only way I can think to describe it.
That bit is at MTV Canada and Contra Costa Times, with the latter claiming it was said to Contact Music when it was obviously part of a big, honking press conference.
Kudos to Collider for not dressing it up and pretending they got to have a one-on-one chat with anyone.
Anyway, I guess I'd just feel better about Newsarama's expanded focus if they were applying their comic book coverage standards to other areas. I've never seen one conference call or panel for comic books dressed up to pretend it was a fireside chat conducted by someone drawing a paycheck from the site. It's one thing to run generic content available everywhere, but it's another to take part in the practice of passing it off as if you were directly involved and have something unique.
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