Crusade Casting

 Posted on 7/15/1998 by J. Michael Straczynski <71016.1644@compuserve.com> to CIS


{original post had no questions}

Here's the problem...and SFX is probably the one magazine most
vulnerable to fall for this, though others do it as well.

Somebody on the net posts something utterly wrong-headed...i.e.,
"I was at this convention and Jeff Conaway said that he'd been signed
to appear in Crusade." (This is an actual example, btw, on the
Gallifrey website, I believe.) For starters, what Jeff and others
signed were *options* on their services in case we should choose to use
them, which were applied ACROSS THE BOARD to anyone and everyone
appearing in "A Call to Arms," because it's pro forma for such movies
that are either pilots or segues to new shows. That's all it is.

But now it gets picked up and repeated on other web sites...and
then the magazines start printing it, saying, "But we saw it on the
web, we have a source for it." Other web sites see the magazine, and
pass on the info, saying, "But we saw it in a magazine." And it just
goes on and on, a self renewing implausibility generator...all this
because one fan didn't understand what he was hearing, or got it wrong,
because he didn't understand what an option is or what it means...and
suddenly we're getting calls from agents asking what the hell is going
on, and I have to spend time straightening it out.

The tendency to cite web sources in magazines has been one of
the most troubling aspects of the cyberworld lately.

jms