December 11, 2024 • 26 mins
Strictly Business co-host Andrew Wallenstein looks back on the rationale he laid out a decade ago as co-editor-in-chief of Variety for publishing the contents of the Sony hack and shares his misgivings about a difficult decision and why he made it.
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to another episode of Strictly Business, the podcast in
which we speak with some of the brightest minds working
in the media business today. I'm Andrew Wallenstein with Variety.
Exactly ten years ago today, I published a commentary defending
the decision to publish the contents of the Sony Hack
(00:27):
in Variety, the publication where I then served as co
editor in chief. And so in this episode of the
Strictly Business podcast, with the distance of a decade's worth
of perspective, I'm going to revisit a decision that, if
I'm being candid, leaves me with some regret more in
just a moment. Do you know seven to ten consumers
(00:57):
crave more authentic, culturally diverse stories in media. That's just
one of the insights Amazon Ads uncovered, and it's from
Ads to Zeitgeist Research. The study, which surveyed over twenty
one thousand respondents across twelve countries, identifies three key trends,
including the shift towards a more globally integrated culture, the
(01:19):
rise of interactive and collaborative content creation, and consumers desire
for more distinctive voices and original content. Visit Advertising dot
Amazon dot com, slash culture Trends. To view the full
report and learn how your brands can connect with audiences
by participating in today's cultural conversations. Welcome back to strictly business.
(01:47):
I've encountered some sticky wickets over the course of my
thirty plus year career, but I have to say that
decision to publish the contents of the Sony hack, well,
that may have been the stickiest. I'm not going to
say if I had to do it all over again,
I would do it differently because I understand why I
did what I did then. But looking back on the
(02:10):
hack in hindsight, I wish I'd taken a different tack,
and today I'll explain why in detail. By now, the
basics are a well known chapter in relatively recent Hollywood history.
On November twenty fourth, twenty fourteen, a group of hackers
based in North Korea, calling themselves Guardians of Peace, began
(02:30):
what you might call a virtual terror campaign against Sony
Pictures an objection to the movie The Interview and its
depiction of their leader, Kim Jong un. Mister rapport, I'm
an agent Lacy with Central Intelligence.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
You too, are going to be in a room alone
with Kim.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
We got the interview. The CIA would love it if
you could take him out, Take him out, like for drinks,
like to dinner, out of the town.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
No, take him out.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Do you want us to kill the leader of North Korea?
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
As part of that campaign, they stole and leaked mountains
of private information of all sorts from Sony, including highly
sensitive emails from its executives concerning their business. Variety was
one of many press outlets around the world that published
some of the information that emerged from emails and other
(03:28):
materials unearthed by the hack.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Well, I was not.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Alone in making that decision. It was a controversial one.
When I think a lot about to this day, I'd
say it's even fair to say it has haunted me
these years. I can remember representatives of the studio begging
us not to publish, citing the damage being done to
their employees and business associates whose privacy was being invaded.
(03:53):
I think they felt particularly betrayed that a publication like Variety,
which has been such an integral institution and the entertainment
industry for so long, would stoop so low. And though
I felt I had solid logical ground on which I
was able to make my decision to publish the Hacks disclosures.
I admitted in the opening words of my article defending
(04:15):
that decision that I did not feel good about it. Quote.
The more sony pictures data keeps leaking, the more my
moral compass spins like a weather van in a hurricane.
What just a week ago seemed such a clear cut
case of doing what my instincts have told me to
do at every other moment of my career is now
(04:36):
making me increasingly queasy. End quote. You know, I still
recall that feeling, that bitterness in my gut that people
get whenever they have to make any decision that doesn't
feel right, even though you know it's not wrong. But
here's the funny thing. When I look back ten years later,
you know what, I don't remember the stories we stuck
(04:58):
our neck out to publish that emerged from the hack. Really,
it occurred to me recently that I couldn't remember a
single revelation from that time, which struck me as odd,
because why take a principled stand to publish something that
wasn't even memorable enough to stick in my brain? Years later,
A fresh doubt started to gnaught me how principled a decision.
(05:21):
Could this have been if I couldn't even remember what
I was taking a stand for. Of course, a little
googling brought it all flooding back, a random hodgepodge of
fairly gossipy tidbits, sony executive and a movie producer making crude,
racist jokes about then President Obama, another one calling Angelina
(05:42):
Jolie a quote minimally talented, spoiled brat head quote, budget
and salary figures from the movie the interview Celebrity Hotel aliases, Yeah, no, wonder,
I couldn't remember this stuff right, But I'll tell you
what I do remember, quite vividly from that a decade ago,
the pointed criticism that came for journalist decision makers like
(06:05):
myself from some pretty prominent celebrities. Not just any celebrities,
mind you, but a group of actors, writers, and directors
that if I had made a top ten list of
the Hollywood luminaries I admired most they'd all be on
that list. So that felt good. We're talking Brad Pitt,
Judd Apatow. But let's start with the one that cut
(06:28):
deeper than them all, because it was the only one
that was targeted directly at me. The great screenwriter Aaron
Sorkin not only wrote an op ed excoriating those like
myself who published the contents of the Sony Hack, but
in his piece singled me out and even linked to
my commentary, which I thought was really cool at the time.
(06:50):
But let's get to the not cool part, which is
where he mercilessly mocked me, and I quote the co
editor in chief of Variety tells us he decided that
the leaks were to use his word newsworthy. I'm dying
to ask him what part of the studio's post production
notes on Cameron Crowe's new project is newsworthy? So newsworthy
(07:13):
that it's worth carrying out the wishes of people who've
said they're going to murder families and who have so
far done everything they threatened to do. Newsworthy. As the
character Innigo Montoya said in The Princess Bride, I do
not think it means what you think it means. End quote,
not contend to simply let his feelings be known. In
(07:33):
a New York Times op ed, Sorkin actually went on
The Today Show to pound the point home. Here's a clip.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
Oscar winning screenwriter and playwright Aaron Sorkin. He's taking aim
at the media and a New York Times op ed
piece for publishing some of the emails and stolen information
from that massive cyber attack against Sony Pictures. Erind's with
us this morning.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Good morning, good morning.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Quote a little bit from your op ed, you say
that the media has basically been quote more treason is
and spectacularly dishonorable in publishing this. You do have a
way with words, will grant you that? Is it your
belief that the press should not have published this at all?
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Yes, listen, I think that I talk about this in
the op ed. There are certainly times when the press
should has an obligation to publish things that we're stolen.
I talk about the Pentagon papers, but you don't even
have to use that as as your standard. Loosen the
standards a little bit. Is there anything in these emails
at all that's in the public interest that points to
(08:32):
wrongdoing at the company that helps anyone in any way?
There isn't. There's just gossip there. You can loosen the
standards even more, but ultimately you have to dispense with
standards entirely in order to be okay with publishing these emails.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Wow, So this is a good place to begin walking
through the reasoning behind my decision to publish. What Sorkin
is essentially saying here is that it's not as if
the press shouldn't publish stolen in information of any kind
under any circumstances. But he is setting the bar above
mere gossip and at what he calls wrongdoing, which we
(09:10):
can presume means examples of corruption or malfeasance, and not
just filmmakers making racist jokes about the president. And I
invoke that infamous example when I draw the distinction to
make a point, by the way, which is to say,
where does one draw the line at defining what exactly
wrongdoing is? But let's not get caught up there. Regardless,
(09:33):
for Sorkin, wrongdoing sets the bar for what he refers
to as the public interest. And of course there's the
other phrase he has fun mocking me with in his
op ed Newsworthy Look in all candor. These phrases are
so amorphous as to have become over the years meaningless.
(09:53):
Any clever editor can bend them to accommodate the raison
to etra of all but the most vacuous pace of journalism.
During the Sony hack, I read many a justification from
others in the press about how publishing the hacked emails
was okay because it held up a mirror to how
the business of culture truly operates. I thought it was
(10:13):
hogwash then, and I think it's hogwash now. Not that
it doesn't hold up a mirror. It does, but that
the mirror alone doesn't justify the invasion of privacy. But
I also didn't believe there has to be something truly
revelatory on the level of, say, wrongdoing, as Sorkin might argue,
in order to rise to the level of being worthy
(10:36):
of publishing. Now, to explain what I mean by that,
I want to explain what it is exactly I've done
for a living for the past twenty years, because it's
at the core of my argument. You know, people who
aren't in my business ask me from time to time
where does news come from? And I know there's a
certain kind of naivete that comes with the question. It
(10:58):
almost sounds like they're asking if babies are delivered by storks.
But there is some nuance to the answer. So let
me lay out the answer for a bit here. I
like to think of news coming in four different channels. First,
there's what's on the record, through so called official channels.
Reporters get press releases, and there are sometimes press conferences,
(11:21):
press calls, presentations, events, all these dog and pony shows
where there is a controlled flow of informations from companies
to the press, where they tell us what they'd like
us to know about their companies. But what separates the
best publications from the run of the mill publications is
the information they get from others, shall we say, unofficial channels.
(11:42):
For instance, there is a second channel, let's say, the
information that gets distributed off the record that not everyone gets.
This is the information that's often marked exclusive, that gives
you reason to read one publication and not another. Now,
just to confuse you a little bit, Often times the
off the record information comes from the same people that
(12:03):
gives you the on the record information, they just don't
identify themselves. That's the third channel of news, what i'd
call a leak. They're deliberately giving you information, but not
through the official channels they typically give to everyone for
one strategic reason or another. But lastly, and most importantly,
there's a fourth channel where news is sourced, where the
(12:27):
reporter secures information they're not supposed to get. It might
come from other people within the organization, or it might
come from the ecosystem of companies that operate around the
organization that might be divulging the information for all sorts
of reasons. But the very best reporters are those that
can traffic in that information. Now, on the entertainment beat,
(12:51):
these are the people who get the scoop on say,
the big movie coming together before the studio is ready
to announce it. Sometimes it gets even more sophisticated than that.
We could break news of a multi billion dollar m
and a deal before it's supposed to be announced. They
even get the details of what the CEOs may have
said to each other in a private conversation to make
(13:11):
said deal happen. I myself know of a few stories
where financial documents were anonymously snail mailed to me, referring
to all sorts of entertainment industry dealings, in one instance,
a fairly major deal where I may have no idea
of how the info was obtained, but once I confirmed it,
(13:32):
I ran with it. Now, why am I telling you
all this, because when you think about the information that
came about and the Sony hack. It's because it really
wasn't all that different than the Fourth Channel information I
traffic in almost every day. So when I hear the
Aaron Sorkins of the world push back against it, what
(13:53):
I'm hearing, to some extent is them really wishing what
the Hollywood establishment more or less fought with me about
every day back when I was co editor in chief,
controlling the flow of information that gets into the public
on their terms. Now I know what you're thinking. The
background explanation I just gave is all well and good,
(14:14):
but it's irrelevant because the Sony hack isn't your ordinary circumstances.
This wasn't some I don't know mogul snitching to you
about a rival's extramarital affair with some startlet he cast
in his next movie. This information came from a terrorist
threatening people's lives, and I was aiding and abetting them.
(14:34):
As Seth Rogan, star of the interview, said at the time,
quote everyone is doing exactly what these criminals want. It's
stolen information that media outlets are directly profiting from. End quote.
Look I get that. I acknowledged then that the hackers
were essentially playing the press as winning pawns. I likened
(14:58):
us as zombies, finelessly chasing any available information no matter what.
But you also have to understand the slippery slope the
situation had the press sliding down into. As I just explained,
my job is getting information about the business of entertainment,
both important and not so important all the time. So
(15:20):
this time the information came in bulk instead of the
usual tidbits. Now, is there some kind of tonnage level
where I should cut off the acceptable amounts of unauthorized
information I'm allowed to accept? And more to the point,
as for how savory a character I am allowed to
accept the information from? Where exactly do I draw the
(15:42):
line between a North Korean hacker? Hacker? I should say,
and for example, your typical Hollywood agent isn't. The simplest solution,
given the impossibility of drawing clear lines, is to not
draw lines at all. I also think you need to
take into account the time in which this hack took place.
(16:06):
Twenty fourteen was just a few years removed from the
dramas of Edward Snowden and years before that WikiLeaks. The
lessons many learned from their stories was that the ends
justified the means when it came to stolen information. Never
mind that Sony is not a government and there didn't
seem to be any corporate wrongdoing on that company to
(16:27):
report on. What's actually striking to me to reflect on
now is how the optics would have been so much
different in this situation if the hacked company in question
was one of the bigger tech companies then, like Meta
or Amazon or Apple. Something tells me, given the regulatory
scrutiny they've come under for years, it would have changed
(16:49):
the equation dramatically. And it's ironic actually to be talking
about a time when the US government was concerned about
protecting Sony, considering here we are ten years later, and
there was actually a brief possibility earlier this year that
Sony could have joined the private e equity group Apollo
Global Management and pursuing the acquisition of Paramount Global, a
(17:13):
move that analysts expected would have drawn regulatory scrutiny of
Sony because they are a foreign company that already owns
a film and TV studio. It's funny how the tables
turned depending on the circumstances, you know. I also want
to address there was criticism that I and many others
in the media got back then, was that we published
(17:35):
the Sony Hack content for clicks in all candor, well,
I'm not going to deny that the web traffic value
of gossipy articles never entered my mind at that time.
Anyone who knows anything of an entertainmenttainment about entertainment news
can tell you that this kind of business minded editorial
(17:55):
content from the Sony Hack is nowhere near the most
call it click rich stories that generate the high six
figure even seven figure unique visitor tolls that most empty
calorie famous person obituary stories generate. So really, it's kind
of an absurd criticism to say we leaned into those
(18:18):
stories intentionally to drive up those numbers, because they didn't
make that much of a difference.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
When we return more.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
On my rationale in handling the Sony Hack and some
of those regrets, do you know seven to ten consumers
crave more authentic, culturally diverse stories in media. That's just
one of the insights Amazon Ads uncovered, and it's from
ads to Zeitgeist research. The study, which surveyed over twenty
(18:52):
one thousand respondents across twelve countries, identifies three key trends,
including the shift towards a more globally integrated culture, the
rise of interactive and collaborative content creation, and consumers desire
for more distinctive voices and original content. Visit Advertising dot
Amazon dot com slash culture Trends to view the full
(19:17):
report and learn how your brands can connect with audiences
by participating in today's cultural conversations. We are back where
I am talking about my rationale for handling the publishing
of the contents of the Sony hack. You know, in
(19:37):
the years since the Sony hack, it's been interesting to
see what has changed and what hasn't. For instance, I
think it would be it would surprise many to learn
because we haven't seen a fiasco at the level of
what Sony experienced in twenty fourteen, that hacks are still
a very big problem for the entertainment industry. Disney and
(19:58):
Roku were hit by cyber attacks just this year, and
in August, study by Unit forty two, the research armor
of cybersecurity company Palo Alto Networks, found that the media
and entertainment industry is more vulnerable than just about any
industry out there, as determined by the highest monthly growth
in what's known as attax surface, the term for the
(20:20):
total number of points within a software environment that are
vulnerable to a cyber attack. Who knows, We could see
another Sony at any time if you think about it.
But what has changed is how high profile hacks have
played out in the press. Think about just two years
after the Sony hack. For instance, Russia hacked the Democratic
(20:43):
National Campaign sorry Democratic National Committee and turned over Hillary
Clinton's emails to WikiLeaks, which in turn steadily fed the
press for months leading up to the presidential election. Many
experts in retrospect believe that could have been a huge
reason why she surprisingly lost to Donald Trump eight years later.
(21:04):
Earlier this year, note that the media behaved quite differently
when Iran hacked the Trump campaign, and some prominent newsrooms
were approached with materials from Vice President j d Vance's dossier.
This time around, the reflexive urge to publish was stifled.
There was much talk about not doing the bidding of
(21:24):
overseas entities, not acting in the best entrance of the
US of A. It was a far cry from the
sensibility that had been drummed into my journalistic noggin since
I was in college, which has been that the media
is its own entity, not American or anything else, a
third party observer that must be so steadfast in its
neutrality that it has no allegiance to anything but its
(21:47):
own aggressive pursuit of truth. To a larger degree than
you might realize, there's some hair splitting that comes with
the territory here that makes tearing your hair out about
the ethics of what to do here a little bit
too precious. For instance, I don't know if there's that
material difference between publishing the contents of the email from
the hack and say, aggregating or describing the reporting elsewhere
(22:11):
of other publications who do publish those contents. And yet
no less than the editor of The New York Times
during that time did draw distinction, saying he would only
cover newsworthy information surfaced by other outlets and not dig
through the files itself, which gets nothing but a total
eye roll for me. And yet I'd say that's at
(22:32):
least a better solution than not reporting on the contents
of the email at all, which to me feels like
doing the worst possible thing a publication can do, which
is to ignore reality. If something is in the news
cycle for good or for bad, once it's there. It's
not like looking away from something makes it go away,
So those purests, to me are even worse. The hair
(22:54):
splitting becomes all the more ridiculous when you consider what
was true then and more so now, which is that
when you really think about it, the whole notion of
the press in these hacking situations is really like an
unnecessary middleman. I mean, it's not like the hackers need
the media's websites or the printing presses in order to
(23:16):
display their stolen information to the public. The Internet is,
after all, one big, open publishing platform, and together with
social media, there's no intermediary required to direct the world's
attention to something that will be of interest to them.
Getting media involvement is like having validation for the materials
(23:36):
in question, a reputable tastemaker who can co sign for
its importance, but isn't really essential to the equation, certainly
not nowadays, when the establishing media almost seems like it
be a detraction, which speaks to the utter futility of
choosing not to have published the emails. Back then, principle,
(23:58):
the stand as some might have seen it, variety would have,
no doubt been part of a very quiet and small minority.
Had I any indication that we were influential enough to
have set a standard, Otherwise, perhaps I would have felt differently.
If anything, to be completely candid, it would have fueled
the reputation my publication had earned over the years of
(24:19):
being an industry lapdog, which I was not about to rekindle. Nevertheless,
I'll confess to feeling a sense of regret to not
having just stood out as the lonely minority back then
and sat out the feeding frenzy over those emails. Do
I think it would have influenced anyone?
Speaker 3 (24:38):
No?
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Do I think it would have even been noticed to
the point where it would have engendered some goodwill in
the industry. Maybe a little, But the skeptic in me
says we would have been just been carelessly tarred by
the same brush as the rest of the media, which
would have made the move feudile. But with a little
more age and wisdom, I do wish I was a
(25:01):
little less cynical then and just experimented with well not
being a cynic. I didn't have that courage then. Maybe
were I in that position today, I still wouldn't. We'll
never know, nor would I want to go through something
like that again and find out.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Thanks for listening, be sure to leave us a review
at Apple Podcasts or Amazon Music. We love to hear
from listeners. Please go to Variety dot com and sign
up for the free weekly Strictly Business newsletter, and don't
forget to tune in next week for another episode of
Strictly Business.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Do you know seven to ten consumers crave more authentic,
culturally diverse stories in media. That's just one of the
insights Amazon Ads uncovered, and it's from Ads to Zeitgeist Research.
The study, which surveyed over twenty one thousand respondents across
twelve countries, identifies three key trends, including the shift towards
(26:11):
a more globally integrated culture, the rise of interactive and
collaborative content creation, and consumers desire for more distinctive voices
and original content. Visit Advertising dot Amazon dot com slash
Culture Trends to view the full report and learn how
your brands can connect with audiences by participating in today's
(26:35):
cultural conversations
Welcome to another episode of Strictly Business, the podcast in
which we speak with some of the brightest minds working
in the media business today. I'm Andrew Wallenstein with Variety.
Exactly ten years ago today, I published a commentary defending
the decision to publish the contents of the Sony Hack
(00:27):
in Variety, the publication where I then served as co
editor in chief. And so in this episode of the
Strictly Business podcast, with the distance of a decade's worth
of perspective, I'm going to revisit a decision that, if
I'm being candid, leaves me with some regret more in
just a moment. Do you know seven to ten consumers
(00:57):
crave more authentic, culturally diverse stories in media. That's just
one of the insights Amazon Ads uncovered, and it's from
Ads to Zeitgeist Research. The study, which surveyed over twenty
one thousand respondents across twelve countries, identifies three key trends,
including the shift towards a more globally integrated culture, the
(01:19):
rise of interactive and collaborative content creation, and consumers desire
for more distinctive voices and original content. Visit Advertising dot
Amazon dot com, slash culture Trends. To view the full
report and learn how your brands can connect with audiences
by participating in today's cultural conversations. Welcome back to strictly business.
(01:47):
I've encountered some sticky wickets over the course of my
thirty plus year career, but I have to say that
decision to publish the contents of the Sony hack, well,
that may have been the stickiest. I'm not going to
say if I had to do it all over again,
I would do it differently because I understand why I
did what I did then. But looking back on the
(02:10):
hack in hindsight, I wish I'd taken a different tack,
and today I'll explain why in detail. By now, the
basics are a well known chapter in relatively recent Hollywood history.
On November twenty fourth, twenty fourteen, a group of hackers
based in North Korea, calling themselves Guardians of Peace, began
(02:30):
what you might call a virtual terror campaign against Sony
Pictures an objection to the movie The Interview and its
depiction of their leader, Kim Jong un. Mister rapport, I'm
an agent Lacy with Central Intelligence.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
You too, are going to be in a room alone
with Kim.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
We got the interview. The CIA would love it if
you could take him out, Take him out, like for drinks,
like to dinner, out of the town.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
No, take him out.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Do you want us to kill the leader of North Korea?
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
As part of that campaign, they stole and leaked mountains
of private information of all sorts from Sony, including highly
sensitive emails from its executives concerning their business. Variety was
one of many press outlets around the world that published
some of the information that emerged from emails and other
(03:28):
materials unearthed by the hack.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Well, I was not.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Alone in making that decision. It was a controversial one.
When I think a lot about to this day, I'd
say it's even fair to say it has haunted me
these years. I can remember representatives of the studio begging
us not to publish, citing the damage being done to
their employees and business associates whose privacy was being invaded.
(03:53):
I think they felt particularly betrayed that a publication like Variety,
which has been such an integral institution and the entertainment
industry for so long, would stoop so low. And though
I felt I had solid logical ground on which I
was able to make my decision to publish the Hacks disclosures.
I admitted in the opening words of my article defending
(04:15):
that decision that I did not feel good about it. Quote.
The more sony pictures data keeps leaking, the more my
moral compass spins like a weather van in a hurricane.
What just a week ago seemed such a clear cut
case of doing what my instincts have told me to
do at every other moment of my career is now
(04:36):
making me increasingly queasy. End quote. You know, I still
recall that feeling, that bitterness in my gut that people
get whenever they have to make any decision that doesn't
feel right, even though you know it's not wrong. But
here's the funny thing. When I look back ten years later,
you know what, I don't remember the stories we stuck
(04:58):
our neck out to publish that emerged from the hack. Really,
it occurred to me recently that I couldn't remember a
single revelation from that time, which struck me as odd,
because why take a principled stand to publish something that
wasn't even memorable enough to stick in my brain? Years later,
A fresh doubt started to gnaught me how principled a decision.
(05:21):
Could this have been if I couldn't even remember what
I was taking a stand for. Of course, a little
googling brought it all flooding back, a random hodgepodge of
fairly gossipy tidbits, sony executive and a movie producer making crude,
racist jokes about then President Obama, another one calling Angelina
(05:42):
Jolie a quote minimally talented, spoiled brat head quote, budget
and salary figures from the movie the interview Celebrity Hotel aliases, Yeah, no, wonder,
I couldn't remember this stuff right, But I'll tell you
what I do remember, quite vividly from that a decade ago,
the pointed criticism that came for journalist decision makers like
(06:05):
myself from some pretty prominent celebrities. Not just any celebrities,
mind you, but a group of actors, writers, and directors
that if I had made a top ten list of
the Hollywood luminaries I admired most they'd all be on
that list. So that felt good. We're talking Brad Pitt,
Judd Apatow. But let's start with the one that cut
(06:28):
deeper than them all, because it was the only one
that was targeted directly at me. The great screenwriter Aaron
Sorkin not only wrote an op ed excoriating those like
myself who published the contents of the Sony Hack, but
in his piece singled me out and even linked to
my commentary, which I thought was really cool at the time.
(06:50):
But let's get to the not cool part, which is
where he mercilessly mocked me, and I quote the co
editor in chief of Variety tells us he decided that
the leaks were to use his word newsworthy. I'm dying
to ask him what part of the studio's post production
notes on Cameron Crowe's new project is newsworthy? So newsworthy
(07:13):
that it's worth carrying out the wishes of people who've
said they're going to murder families and who have so
far done everything they threatened to do. Newsworthy. As the
character Innigo Montoya said in The Princess Bride, I do
not think it means what you think it means. End quote,
not contend to simply let his feelings be known. In
(07:33):
a New York Times op ed, Sorkin actually went on
The Today Show to pound the point home. Here's a clip.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
Oscar winning screenwriter and playwright Aaron Sorkin. He's taking aim
at the media and a New York Times op ed
piece for publishing some of the emails and stolen information
from that massive cyber attack against Sony Pictures. Erind's with
us this morning.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Good morning, good morning.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Quote a little bit from your op ed, you say
that the media has basically been quote more treason is
and spectacularly dishonorable in publishing this. You do have a
way with words, will grant you that? Is it your
belief that the press should not have published this at all?
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Yes, listen, I think that I talk about this in
the op ed. There are certainly times when the press
should has an obligation to publish things that we're stolen.
I talk about the Pentagon papers, but you don't even
have to use that as as your standard. Loosen the
standards a little bit. Is there anything in these emails
at all that's in the public interest that points to
(08:32):
wrongdoing at the company that helps anyone in any way?
There isn't. There's just gossip there. You can loosen the
standards even more, but ultimately you have to dispense with
standards entirely in order to be okay with publishing these emails.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Wow, So this is a good place to begin walking
through the reasoning behind my decision to publish. What Sorkin
is essentially saying here is that it's not as if
the press shouldn't publish stolen in information of any kind
under any circumstances. But he is setting the bar above
mere gossip and at what he calls wrongdoing, which we
(09:10):
can presume means examples of corruption or malfeasance, and not
just filmmakers making racist jokes about the president. And I
invoke that infamous example when I draw the distinction to
make a point, by the way, which is to say,
where does one draw the line at defining what exactly
wrongdoing is? But let's not get caught up there. Regardless,
(09:33):
for Sorkin, wrongdoing sets the bar for what he refers
to as the public interest. And of course there's the
other phrase he has fun mocking me with in his
op ed Newsworthy Look in all candor. These phrases are
so amorphous as to have become over the years meaningless.
(09:53):
Any clever editor can bend them to accommodate the raison
to etra of all but the most vacuous pace of journalism.
During the Sony hack, I read many a justification from
others in the press about how publishing the hacked emails
was okay because it held up a mirror to how
the business of culture truly operates. I thought it was
(10:13):
hogwash then, and I think it's hogwash now. Not that
it doesn't hold up a mirror. It does, but that
the mirror alone doesn't justify the invasion of privacy. But
I also didn't believe there has to be something truly
revelatory on the level of, say, wrongdoing, as Sorkin might argue,
in order to rise to the level of being worthy
(10:36):
of publishing. Now, to explain what I mean by that,
I want to explain what it is exactly I've done
for a living for the past twenty years, because it's
at the core of my argument. You know, people who
aren't in my business ask me from time to time
where does news come from? And I know there's a
certain kind of naivete that comes with the question. It
(10:58):
almost sounds like they're asking if babies are delivered by storks.
But there is some nuance to the answer. So let
me lay out the answer for a bit here. I
like to think of news coming in four different channels. First,
there's what's on the record, through so called official channels.
Reporters get press releases, and there are sometimes press conferences,
(11:21):
press calls, presentations, events, all these dog and pony shows
where there is a controlled flow of informations from companies
to the press, where they tell us what they'd like
us to know about their companies. But what separates the
best publications from the run of the mill publications is
the information they get from others, shall we say, unofficial channels.
(11:42):
For instance, there is a second channel, let's say, the
information that gets distributed off the record that not everyone gets.
This is the information that's often marked exclusive, that gives
you reason to read one publication and not another. Now,
just to confuse you a little bit, Often times the
off the record information comes from the same people that
(12:03):
gives you the on the record information, they just don't
identify themselves. That's the third channel of news, what i'd
call a leak. They're deliberately giving you information, but not
through the official channels they typically give to everyone for
one strategic reason or another. But lastly, and most importantly,
there's a fourth channel where news is sourced, where the
(12:27):
reporter secures information they're not supposed to get. It might
come from other people within the organization, or it might
come from the ecosystem of companies that operate around the
organization that might be divulging the information for all sorts
of reasons. But the very best reporters are those that
can traffic in that information. Now, on the entertainment beat,
(12:51):
these are the people who get the scoop on say,
the big movie coming together before the studio is ready
to announce it. Sometimes it gets even more sophisticated than that.
We could break news of a multi billion dollar m
and a deal before it's supposed to be announced. They
even get the details of what the CEOs may have
said to each other in a private conversation to make
(13:11):
said deal happen. I myself know of a few stories
where financial documents were anonymously snail mailed to me, referring
to all sorts of entertainment industry dealings, in one instance,
a fairly major deal where I may have no idea
of how the info was obtained, but once I confirmed it,
(13:32):
I ran with it. Now, why am I telling you
all this, because when you think about the information that
came about and the Sony hack. It's because it really
wasn't all that different than the Fourth Channel information I
traffic in almost every day. So when I hear the
Aaron Sorkins of the world push back against it, what
(13:53):
I'm hearing, to some extent is them really wishing what
the Hollywood establishment more or less fought with me about
every day back when I was co editor in chief,
controlling the flow of information that gets into the public
on their terms. Now I know what you're thinking. The
background explanation I just gave is all well and good,
(14:14):
but it's irrelevant because the Sony hack isn't your ordinary circumstances.
This wasn't some I don't know mogul snitching to you
about a rival's extramarital affair with some startlet he cast
in his next movie. This information came from a terrorist
threatening people's lives, and I was aiding and abetting them.
(14:34):
As Seth Rogan, star of the interview, said at the time,
quote everyone is doing exactly what these criminals want. It's
stolen information that media outlets are directly profiting from. End quote.
Look I get that. I acknowledged then that the hackers
were essentially playing the press as winning pawns. I likened
(14:58):
us as zombies, finelessly chasing any available information no matter what.
But you also have to understand the slippery slope the
situation had the press sliding down into. As I just explained,
my job is getting information about the business of entertainment,
both important and not so important all the time. So
(15:20):
this time the information came in bulk instead of the
usual tidbits. Now, is there some kind of tonnage level
where I should cut off the acceptable amounts of unauthorized
information I'm allowed to accept? And more to the point,
as for how savory a character I am allowed to
accept the information from? Where exactly do I draw the
(15:42):
line between a North Korean hacker? Hacker? I should say,
and for example, your typical Hollywood agent isn't. The simplest solution,
given the impossibility of drawing clear lines, is to not
draw lines at all. I also think you need to
take into account the time in which this hack took place.
(16:06):
Twenty fourteen was just a few years removed from the
dramas of Edward Snowden and years before that WikiLeaks. The
lessons many learned from their stories was that the ends
justified the means when it came to stolen information. Never
mind that Sony is not a government and there didn't
seem to be any corporate wrongdoing on that company to
(16:27):
report on. What's actually striking to me to reflect on
now is how the optics would have been so much
different in this situation if the hacked company in question
was one of the bigger tech companies then, like Meta
or Amazon or Apple. Something tells me, given the regulatory
scrutiny they've come under for years, it would have changed
(16:49):
the equation dramatically. And it's ironic actually to be talking
about a time when the US government was concerned about
protecting Sony, considering here we are ten years later, and
there was actually a brief possibility earlier this year that
Sony could have joined the private e equity group Apollo
Global Management and pursuing the acquisition of Paramount Global, a
(17:13):
move that analysts expected would have drawn regulatory scrutiny of
Sony because they are a foreign company that already owns
a film and TV studio. It's funny how the tables
turned depending on the circumstances, you know. I also want
to address there was criticism that I and many others
in the media got back then, was that we published
(17:35):
the Sony Hack content for clicks in all candor, well,
I'm not going to deny that the web traffic value
of gossipy articles never entered my mind at that time.
Anyone who knows anything of an entertainmenttainment about entertainment news
can tell you that this kind of business minded editorial
(17:55):
content from the Sony Hack is nowhere near the most
call it click rich stories that generate the high six
figure even seven figure unique visitor tolls that most empty
calorie famous person obituary stories generate. So really, it's kind
of an absurd criticism to say we leaned into those
(18:18):
stories intentionally to drive up those numbers, because they didn't
make that much of a difference.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
When we return more.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
On my rationale in handling the Sony Hack and some
of those regrets, do you know seven to ten consumers
crave more authentic, culturally diverse stories in media. That's just
one of the insights Amazon Ads uncovered, and it's from
ads to Zeitgeist research. The study, which surveyed over twenty
(18:52):
one thousand respondents across twelve countries, identifies three key trends,
including the shift towards a more globally integrated culture, the
rise of interactive and collaborative content creation, and consumers desire
for more distinctive voices and original content. Visit Advertising dot
Amazon dot com slash culture Trends to view the full
(19:17):
report and learn how your brands can connect with audiences
by participating in today's cultural conversations. We are back where
I am talking about my rationale for handling the publishing
of the contents of the Sony hack. You know, in
(19:37):
the years since the Sony hack, it's been interesting to
see what has changed and what hasn't. For instance, I
think it would be it would surprise many to learn
because we haven't seen a fiasco at the level of
what Sony experienced in twenty fourteen, that hacks are still
a very big problem for the entertainment industry. Disney and
(19:58):
Roku were hit by cyber attacks just this year, and
in August, study by Unit forty two, the research armor
of cybersecurity company Palo Alto Networks, found that the media
and entertainment industry is more vulnerable than just about any
industry out there, as determined by the highest monthly growth
in what's known as attax surface, the term for the
(20:20):
total number of points within a software environment that are
vulnerable to a cyber attack. Who knows, We could see
another Sony at any time if you think about it.
But what has changed is how high profile hacks have
played out in the press. Think about just two years
after the Sony hack. For instance, Russia hacked the Democratic
(20:43):
National Campaign sorry Democratic National Committee and turned over Hillary
Clinton's emails to WikiLeaks, which in turn steadily fed the
press for months leading up to the presidential election. Many
experts in retrospect believe that could have been a huge
reason why she surprisingly lost to Donald Trump eight years later.
(21:04):
Earlier this year, note that the media behaved quite differently
when Iran hacked the Trump campaign, and some prominent newsrooms
were approached with materials from Vice President j d Vance's dossier.
This time around, the reflexive urge to publish was stifled.
There was much talk about not doing the bidding of
(21:24):
overseas entities, not acting in the best entrance of the
US of A. It was a far cry from the
sensibility that had been drummed into my journalistic noggin since
I was in college, which has been that the media
is its own entity, not American or anything else, a
third party observer that must be so steadfast in its
neutrality that it has no allegiance to anything but its
(21:47):
own aggressive pursuit of truth. To a larger degree than
you might realize, there's some hair splitting that comes with
the territory here that makes tearing your hair out about
the ethics of what to do here a little bit
too precious. For instance, I don't know if there's that
material difference between publishing the contents of the email from
the hack and say, aggregating or describing the reporting elsewhere
(22:11):
of other publications who do publish those contents. And yet
no less than the editor of The New York Times
during that time did draw distinction, saying he would only
cover newsworthy information surfaced by other outlets and not dig
through the files itself, which gets nothing but a total
eye roll for me. And yet I'd say that's at
(22:32):
least a better solution than not reporting on the contents
of the email at all, which to me feels like
doing the worst possible thing a publication can do, which
is to ignore reality. If something is in the news
cycle for good or for bad, once it's there. It's
not like looking away from something makes it go away,
So those purests, to me are even worse. The hair
(22:54):
splitting becomes all the more ridiculous when you consider what
was true then and more so now, which is that
when you really think about it, the whole notion of
the press in these hacking situations is really like an
unnecessary middleman. I mean, it's not like the hackers need
the media's websites or the printing presses in order to
(23:16):
display their stolen information to the public. The Internet is,
after all, one big, open publishing platform, and together with
social media, there's no intermediary required to direct the world's
attention to something that will be of interest to them.
Getting media involvement is like having validation for the materials
(23:36):
in question, a reputable tastemaker who can co sign for
its importance, but isn't really essential to the equation, certainly
not nowadays, when the establishing media almost seems like it
be a detraction, which speaks to the utter futility of
choosing not to have published the emails. Back then, principle,
(23:58):
the stand as some might have seen it, variety would have,
no doubt been part of a very quiet and small minority.
Had I any indication that we were influential enough to
have set a standard, Otherwise, perhaps I would have felt differently.
If anything, to be completely candid, it would have fueled
the reputation my publication had earned over the years of
(24:19):
being an industry lapdog, which I was not about to rekindle. Nevertheless,
I'll confess to feeling a sense of regret to not
having just stood out as the lonely minority back then
and sat out the feeding frenzy over those emails. Do
I think it would have influenced anyone?
Speaker 3 (24:38):
No?
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Do I think it would have even been noticed to
the point where it would have engendered some goodwill in
the industry. Maybe a little, But the skeptic in me
says we would have been just been carelessly tarred by
the same brush as the rest of the media, which
would have made the move feudile. But with a little
more age and wisdom, I do wish I was a
(25:01):
little less cynical then and just experimented with well not
being a cynic. I didn't have that courage then. Maybe
were I in that position today, I still wouldn't. We'll
never know, nor would I want to go through something
like that again and find out.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Thanks for listening, be sure to leave us a review
at Apple Podcasts or Amazon Music. We love to hear
from listeners. Please go to Variety dot com and sign
up for the free weekly Strictly Business newsletter, and don't
forget to tune in next week for another episode of
Strictly Business.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Do you know seven to ten consumers crave more authentic,
culturally diverse stories in media. That's just one of the
insights Amazon Ads uncovered, and it's from Ads to Zeitgeist Research.
The study, which surveyed over twenty one thousand respondents across
twelve countries, identifies three key trends, including the shift towards
(26:11):
a more globally integrated culture, the rise of interactive and
collaborative content creation, and consumers desire for more distinctive voices
and original content. Visit Advertising dot Amazon dot com slash
Culture Trends to view the full report and learn how
your brands can connect with audiences by participating in today's
(26:35):
cultural conversations
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