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You Liked This Movie, Or Else

Posted by timothy on from the handing-you-the-grain-of-salt dept.

Paul Egell-Johnsen writes: "All the Norwegian news papers, and some Swedish ones, are raving about the forthcoming "Lord of the Rings" movie after a 25 minutes screening at a chateau near Cannes. BBC reveals why the reviews are that positive, all those who atended had to sign a declaration of goodwill. A New Zealand report spins it differently, apparaently the audience was genuinely impressed. A quote from the end of the article: 'I don't think it will be a film for children. One of the big monsters was genuinely terrifying.'" The stills which have trickled out have been impressive to me, but it's sad if a positive-news-only policy is needed to hype it.

2 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. What exactly is the restriction? by Floyd+Turbo · · Score: 5
    I read the BBC article, and all it says on the point is that people attending had to sign a "declaration of goodwill". That's not the same, IMHO, as a requirement that any stories printed must be positive. It certainly seems to me that you can write a negative review without violating "goodwill".


    Has anyone here ever been asked to sign such a declaration? Do any of you know the words that were used in this one, or some other one?
    --

  2. I think the "goodwill" premise is ill-informed by Flailey · · Score: 5

    Is there any more info on this "declaration of goodwill" besides the BBC article? If not, I don't think there's any way you can assume that journalists are held from making negative comments. I work in music/entertainment publicity and the term goodwill or good faith generally means that you don't misrepresent yourself. For journalists that usually means that if you are granted an interview, say, you are honest about what it's for... for example that it's for the TV show you work on and not some private book project, or that if you ask for quotes for a "story about jazz" it's not really for a story about how your ex-girlfriend says you beat her. Basically it just means that you agree to act in a professional manner.

    In the case of this screening, absent other evidence, I would strongly assume that the intent was to prevent any smuggling of images or plot devices, etc... I find it extremely hard to believe that a journalist would be prevented from commenting generally that what they saw was uninteresting, poorly done, etc... Just about every news organization has strong policies that prevent all of their reporters from entering into such agreements.