Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Attack of the Spoilers

So, the instant I heard that Joe Torre had a book coming out about his time with the Yankees, I ordered it (even if he technically wrote nothing). Now I'm wondering if I wasted my money. The book comes out today, and it's already been making news thanks to a copy that a couple of NY journalists got their hands on a week or so early.

The leaked portion of the book couldn't be more than a few paragraphs, and yet hours of TV/radio time, gallons of ink, GB of internet traffic has been devoted to it. Now that the book is out, and we'll get more than an isolated comment about A-Rod or a description of Cashman's treatment of Torre toward the end. I can't imagine that we'll see less reporting.

Now, I'll try to avoid as much of that as I can, but it won't be enough. If I'm not careful, I'll end up reading/hearing the whole book before my copy arrives on Thursday, and I really won't have time to dig in to it until Saturday.

I understand our media culture is all about getting the story out before anyone else. But when it comes getting the details of a book--memoir or best-selling novel (how many leaks about the ending of Deathly Hallows were there?)--movie, TV series finale, etc. what's the rush? Can't we wait for the intended audience to get a crack at it before rushing to print? What's the benefit to spilling the details/ending/spoilers?

Internet fan sites and whatnot have the decency to warn readers about spoilers, so we can avoid them. Can't legitimate news groups (or reasonable facsimiles thereof) do the same?

just a little griping, I guess.

3 comments:

Hobster said...

I actually had another post, with a real ending in the works when some reading I was doing to round it out sorta made the whole thing moot. Will try that again in a day or two.

Anonymous said...

For a moment there I thought this was your subtle way of complaining about the Buffy/Angel spoilers I was throwing up in #pros.

:-)

kletois

Anonymous said...

Wait a minute! There weren't that many spoilers about the last Potter book was there? I must live in a bubble! Let us know how the real book is won't you hobster? We all know that we can't trust the hype....