MEDIA LENS: The Trade Press Paradox of Covering an Industry You Depend On
Ron Watermon • December 30, 2025
This year, Variety turns 120. In an industry built on reinvention, that kind of longevity is rare.
Trade publications don’t survive for more than a century by accident. They endure because they become indispensable, not just as chroniclers of an industry, but as part of its infrastructure.
Variety has helped shape Broadway, film, television, and music for generations. It has documented the business of entertainment while quietly helping define what that business values, rewards, and amplifies.
That’s the paradox at the heart of industry press: it presents itself as an observer, but it operates as a participant. It covers the industry it depends on; and in doing so, inevitably influences it.
This isn’t a criticism. It’s a structural reality.
The Comfortable Fiction of Arm’s-Length Coverage
We like to believe industry media stands at arm’s length. The idea reassures us. It suggests neutrality, independence, and objectivity. It tells us that coverage reflects reality rather than shaping it.
But industry trades are not designed to function like adversarial watchdogs. They are embedded by nature. Their access, advertising revenue, and relevance depend on the very ecosystems they cover. They sit inside the loop, not outside it.
In Hollywood, this embeddedness is particularly visible during awards season. Pages fill with studio ads. Coverage accelerates. Language tightens. Narratives congeal. The machine hums.
The goal is not deception. The goal is participation. Industry press exists to serve insiders first. Everyone else is reading over their shoulders. In a sense, the industry trades serve as an advertising and PR vehicle for the dominant players in the industry.
Like virtually all media, I have no doubt that advertising spend influences coverage. It is the fundamental economic reality of American media.
Language Is the Lever
One of the most powerful tools trade press wields isn’t access, it’s language and how they frame coverage.
Certain words don’t merely describe momentum in the entertainment business; they create it. “Buzz.” “Heat.” “Tracking.” “Breakout.” “Frontrunner.” “Prestige.” These terms function like market signals. They reduce uncertainty. They imply inevitability. They tell financiers, buyers, and talent where to place their bets.
Once a project is described as having “heat,” behavior changes around it. Meetings happen faster. Risk tolerance expands.
Competing narratives recede. Coverage doesn’t just report momentum; through coverage it manufactures it.
Over time, this vocabulary migrates outward. It moves from the trades into agency decks, studio meetings, pitch sessions, and eventually into the broader culture. The language becomes shorthand for value. It shapes what gets made and who gets taken seriously. In reflecting on its 120 year history, Variety acknowledged the “slanguage” it has used to cover the industry has entered not only the language of the industry it covers, but broader society.
If you want to understand how an industry works, start by listening to the words it uses to talk about itself. To truly understand how an industry works, look first at industry trade publications.
Industry Publications Take You Behind the Curtain
In my book
STORYSMART Storytelling for ALL:
How to Take Control, Own Your True Story, and Profit Like a Hollywood Insider, I make it a point to explain the importance of understanding how the storytelling industry works.
To succeed in any industry, you need to grasp how it operates. You need to see the logic in how everything connects. If you are a consumer or a fan, it is sometimes hard to see past the marketing to understand the economics and structural elements that drive its operation.
If you are a devoted fan of something, it is easy to miss the business aspect behind it. I share my experience of growing up in St. Louis as a Cardinals fan. Baseball is almost a religion in our town.
To me, baseball was pure magic – home runs, hot dogs, and warm summer days at the ballpark. But when I started working for the team in 2001, the magic didn’t disappear, it transformed. I began to see the business of baseball. That shift in perspective from Cardinals fans to Cardinals Insider was in part fueled by my consumption of the Sports Business Daily, a industry trade publication that was photocopied and placed on my front office desk each morning.
This publication took you into the front offices of teams to understand the economics and decision making that was taking place behind the curtain of the exhibition aspect sports. While fan publications focus on the spectacle on the field, court or track, industry publications offer a window into the ownership and management.
The sports reporters that covered the team rarely understood the business aspect of the team they covered. And it was over time that I realized how they functionally fit into the marketing flywheel of the broader industry.
Baseball Taught Me This First
In professional baseball, the Baseball Writers' Association of America is not an external body. It is part of the MLB ecosystem. Its members work for daily newspapers in major league cities. Their coverage drives readership. Their votes decide Hall of Fame careers.
Access is the currency. Credentials open doors—literally. Clubhouse access, dugout proximity, travel privileges. Writers are woven into the daily rhythms of the game. Over time, that access can feel less like a professional courtesy and more like an entitlement.
Teams understand this dynamic. Writers understand it too. Everyone pretends otherwise.
When Embedded Turns Entitled
I saw this dynamic come into sharp relief when we tightened security protocols at the ballpark. We were working hard to meet all the Department of Homeland Security’s rigorous security protocols to have our facilities meet their designation standards.
The changes needed were straightforward: more screening, more consistency, better safety, a security perimeter around players and front office staff. While the changes were understandable, the pushback from some of our press was not.
At spring training, Derrick Goold, a reporter from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch refused to comply. He staged a sit-in outside the media director’s office. The objection wasn’t about inconvenience. It was about status. The idea that a credentialed writer should be treated like everyone else felt, to him, like a violation of the natural order.
Derrick lodged his protest in a way that in hindsight should have been foreseeable from his generation of journalists. Our PR staff began to recognize that millennial reporters were different than the baby boomers and generation x reporters who proceeded them.
While our seasoned reporters didn’t like the changes, they understood them and handled them with grace and class. My staff was put off by the less dignified reaction.
I spent hours on the phone with Derrick’s editor trying to defuse the situation. The subtext was clear: access had become identity. The boundary between observer and participant had blurred.
This wasn’t an anomaly. It was a feature of an embedded system.
Politics vs. Baseball: Two Very Different Press Cultures
Before baseball, I worked in politics. The contrast was striking.
Political press operates in a more openly adversarial posture. Access is transactional and temporary. The relationship is tense and mutually distrusting by design. No one pretends otherwise.
Baseball was different.
I remember being almost shocked by how Tony La Russa handled press conferences. Coming from politics, I expected more diplomacy.
I saw control. The dynamic was not hostile, it was managed. There was an unspoken understanding that the press needed the team as much, if not more, than the team needed the press.
I was used to PR people bending over backwards to help reporters on deadline. I was stunned by the apathy of our staff to helping reporters. It was virtually non-existent. Our staff’s attitude was that their job was to provide access, and then it was up to the reporter to build relationships with players, the manager, the GM and others.
Our approach was not unique in our industry. That mindset shapes coverage. It affects tone, framing, and consequence. It rewards fluency over friction.
Hollywood Is Baseball with Better Wardrobes
Hollywood operates on the same logic, but just with better lighting.
Trade reporters enjoy proximity to glamour, celebrity, and influence. Access is everything. Relationships matter. Being “in” is a professional asset.
Publications like Variety, Deadline, and The Hollywood Reporter don’t simply cover success; they help define it. Their language signals who is ascendant, who is fading, and what narratives are worth attention.
Advertising and editorial coexist comfortably. Awards season makes that explicit. Studios promote their contenders in the same pages that analyze the race. No one is confused about the arrangement. It works because everyone benefits. This doesn’t make trade press corrupt. It makes it symbiotic.
Learning an Industry by Reading Its Mirror
When I decided to move STORYSMART into filmmaking, one of the first things I did was subscribe to the trades. I wanted to learn how the industry talked to itself. What it celebrated. What it ignored. How it framed risk and reward.
Industry publications are not just news sources. They are educational tools. They teach newcomers how power flows. They reveal the incentives beneath the surface. They expose the language that unlocks rooms.
If you don’t understand that language, you are at a disadvantage—especially if you are a creator trying to protect your rights and control your story.
Naming the Paradox
Variety’s 120-year run is not a contradiction of journalistic values. It is evidence of a deeper truth: industry press thrives by embedding itself so deeply that it becomes indispensable.
The paradox is this: trade publications must maintain the appearance of independence even as they remain structurally intertwined with the industries they cover. They walk that line every day—and have for more than a century.
If you want to understand who holds power in an industry, pay attention to the language it uses to describe itself. Watch who gets covered, how they are framed, and which words carry weight.
Those words don’t just tell the story. They move the market.
120 Years of Variety Magazine
How a Story of a U.S. Airman Shot Down in Iran is Already Becoming a Feature Film
There are moments in your career that don’t feel particularly significant at the time, but years later, you realize they changed everything. The television show we started when I was with the St. Louis Cardinals, Cardinals Insider, is now heading into its 11th season. In an industry where most things don’t last, there’s something meaningful about building something that endures. While I've already shared the story of how the show almost didn’t happen, what’s been on my mind recently is what we were doing before it ever aired. For me the show was never the starting point, it was a destination on a journey that began seventeen years ago when I decided to fully commit to becoming a brand journalist. A Baseball Brand Journalist When I moved over to the Baseball Operations Department to work with our Media Relations team in September 2009, the media landscape looked very different than it does today. Social media was still in its infancy. We had exactly one platform we controlled, Twitter, and even that was a bit of a mess. Our account was @MLBstlcardinals, while Major League Baseball operated @stlcardinals out of New York. It was confusing for fans and limiting for us. But it also created an opportunity. Instead of waiting for others to tell our story, we decided to start telling it ourselves. Not as marketers, but as actual storytellers. More specifically, we adopted a mindset rooted in journalism. The fundamentals I learned years earlier in college—who, what, when, where, why, and how. The discipline of getting it right. The importance of clarity, structure, and credibility. We weren’t trying to spin the story. We were trying to tell it honestly, accurately, and from a clearly defined point of view. That point of view mattered. We made a promise to our audience: we would cover the team like journalists, but from the inside. We weren’t going to pretend to be something we weren’t. We were insiders. That was the advantage. And instead of hiding from it, we leaned into it. At the same time, we understood the responsibility that came with that position. We didn’t need to be first. We needed to be right. That meant establishing standards. It meant covering the good moments like the wins, the milestones, and the behind-the-scenes access fans couldn’t get anywhere else. But it also meant not ignoring the harder stories when they arose. Credibility was always at stake, and we treated it that way. I knew were building something. A system. A mindset. A way of approaching storytelling that went beyond promotion and into something far more durable. Over time, that approach evolved into a weekly TV show that’s still on the air more than a decade later. But none of that happens without what came first. The decision to think as brand journalists with a point of view. Brand Journalists with a Point of View What we were building in those early days didn’t look like much from the outside. There was no studio. No formal production schedule. No distribution strategy beyond posting to social media and linking out to photos and video. In fact, some of the earliest tools we used would feel almost laughable today.
St. Louis, April 1, 2026 - Last week I had one of those “ no shit, Sherlock ” moments where the obvious hits you all at once. I was thinking about Opening Day. Like I’ve done the past few years, I planned to share a throwback post from ten years ago. I dig into my photo archive, find a few cell phone images from seasons past, and put something out on social media. Posting doesn’t come naturally to me. I know that sounds ironic given what I do now, but I’ve never been particularly drawn to self-promotion or the performative nature of those platforms. After all, I’m a middle-aged introvert, not some Gen Z dude who grew up with social media and enjoys showing off. I hate shameless self-promotion and bragging. That said, I have a fellow Gen X friend who has been chirping at me for years to share more about my time with the St. Louis Cardinals. I headed her advice and started digging. What I found stopped me. As I worked my way through old photos, I realized that 2016 wasn’t just another season. It was the year we honored Lou Brock and the year we launched Cardinals Insider, the television show I developed and produced during my time with the club. That’s when it hit me. It has been a decade. And the show is not only still around— it’s thriving . I must tip my cap to my colleagues at the Cardinals as they have continued to invest in it, expand it, and build on the foundation we put in place back in 2016. It is truly remarkable. Seeing that now as I’ve transitioned my business into filmmaking, hit me in a profound way. It was literally an “aha” moment. Like a lot of entrepreneurs and creatives, I’ve wrestled with self-doubt. You question whether you’re on the right path. Whether the work you’re doing is building toward something. Realizing that this show that I fought to make happen has now run for more than a decade was affirming. Because the vision was never small. From the beginning, the goal was to build something self-sustaining that would continue to grow and evolve long after I was gone. And it has, big time. That realization couldn’t have happened form me at a better time.
For years, we’ve talked about the “creator economy” as if it exists somewhere outside of Hollywood. That distinction is collapsing. The recent partnership between TikTok and Tubi isn’t just another creator initiative or talent program. It’s more significant. It’s a signal that the infrastructure of the entertainment industry is being rebuilt quietly, efficiently, and right in front of us. And if you understand what’s happening here, you begin to see something I’ve been talking about for a long time through the STORYSMART® framework: The future of media belongs to those who originate, control, and develop their story IP—before anyone else does. The Headline Is Misleading—The Shift Is Not On its face, the announcement is straightforward. TikTok and Tubi are launching an incubator to help creators develop long-form series. Creators will lead the creative direction, TikTok will help identify talent, and Tubi will provide support and distribution. That sounds like a program. It’s not. It’s a system. What we’re witnessing is the formalization of a pipeline that has been developing organically for years: Short-form → Audience → Proof of Concept → Long-form → Monetization That pipeline used to be fragmented. It is now being institutionalized and that changes everything. A “New” Studio System Is Being Built To understand why this matters, it helps to zoom out. The traditional studio system operated like this. Studios sourced or acquired IP. Studios then developed the projects internally. They controlled production and distribution. Creators were hired to execute. In that model, power flowed downstream from the studio. What we’re seeing now is the inversion of that model. Today creators originate IP. They build audiences directly. Platforms identify what’s working and then invite creators upstream into long-form development. That’s not a minor shift. That’s a structural reorganization of the industry. Tubi isn’t just licensing content. It’s building a development pipeline fed by creators who already have validated ideas and audiences. They have built a following and are consistently engaging with that audience. TikTok isn’t just distributing content. It’s functioning as a global story testing engine. Put those together, and you don’t have a partnership. You have a modern studio system. Short-Form is the New Development Slate One of the biggest misconceptions creators still have is thinking of their short form content as the “end” product. It’s not. It’s the beginning. What used to be a script, a pitch deck, or a sizzle reel is now a feed. Every post is a test. Every series of posts is a proof of concept. Every engaged audience is a signal that there is an appetite for more. It is also validation of episodic entertainment. In Hollywood, development executives used to ask: Does this story work? Is there an audience? Can this scale and will we make money? Today, those questions are being answered in real time, publicly, on platforms like TikTok. The difference is speed and data. Instead of spending months developing a concept in a vacuum, creators are now essentially iterating ideas in public. They are refining tone, structure, and format. They are building an audience alongside the story, if you will. By the time a platform like Tubi gets involved, the risk profile has already changed. The story isn’t theoretical anymore. It’s proven. From Feed to Franchise This is where it gets interesting. Because once you understand that short form is development, you start to see the next phase: Episodic storytelling is the bridge from feed to franchise. Creators who succeed in this new ecosystem aren’t just posting content. They’re building narrative continuity. Think about it. They’re creating recurring characters, ongoing storylines, thematic consistency, and audience expectation. In other words, they’re doing what television has always done, just in shorter bursts. And that’s the key. The transition from short-form to long-form isn’t a leap. It’s an extension. When done correctly, a long-form series is simply a more expansive version of something that already works. That’s why this Tubi + TikTok model makes so much sense. It’s not about “teaching” creators how to make long-form content. It’s about identifying creators who are already thinking episodically and giving them the resources to scale. The Shift from Dependency to Leverage There’s another layer here that matters just as much. For years, creators have been dependent on platforms. Algorithms dictated visibility. Platforms controlled monetization. Distribution was the gate. That dynamic is shifting. What this partnership signals are that platforms are now competing for creators who bring something valuable to the table. They are looking for a built-in audience, fresh IP, and proven engagement. That’s leverage. All of this aligns directly with a core principle of our STORYSMART® philosophy. Don’t build your story on someone else’s platform. Build your story so platforms come to you. To be clear, that doesn’t mean ignoring platforms. It means using them strategically. I’m a big fan of the idea of non-dependent distribution. I’m inherently cynical about big monopolies and technology that touches us everywhere we go. But there’s a difference between being platform-dependent and being platform-leveraged. Creators who understand that distinction will be the ones who benefit most from these new models that are being pioneered. The STORYSMART® Lens: Why This Matters Everything we teach through STORYSMART® is built around a simple idea: your story is an asset. It is not content. It is not just a post or a one-off project. Your story is an asset that should be treated like any other asset. Like any asset, its value is determined by ownership, structure, how it is developed and how it is positioned in the market. What this Tubi + TikTok initiative validates is that the market is now actively seeking well-developed story assets originated by creators. But most creators aren’t prepared. They have content. They have audience. They even have momentum. But what they often lack is a clear story architecture and well-organized, copyright-protected source material with clear rights clarity and smart development strategy. That’s where the gap is. And that gap is exactly what the STORYSMART® framework is designed to solve. Because when a platform comes calling, the question becomes are you ready to scale your story or are you just reacting to the opportunity? The STORYSMART® Media Mogul Mindset This is where mindset becomes strategy. The creators who will win in this new environment are the ones who stop thinking like content creators and start thinking like media companies. That means treating short form as development, not output. It means building stories intentionally, not accidentally. Most importantly, it means understanding right and ownership from day one and structuring projects for long-term value. It’s the difference between “I have a following” and “I have an IP pipeline.” That’s the STORYSMART® Media Mogul Mindset. And it’s no longer optional. Because the industry is moving in that direction with or without you. Why This Moment Matters Right Now Timing is everything. We’re at a point where several forces are converging. Streaming platforms need cost-efficient, proven content. Creator platforms have massive talent pools and data. Audiences are already conditioned for episodic, bite-sized storytelling and technology has democratized access to quality production. That convergence creates opportunity. But it also creates competition. Because as more creators enter this space, the differentiator won’t be who can create content. It will be who can develop story. That’s a higher bar. And it’s where professionals such as filmmakers, journalists, and writers have an edge if they adapt. The Big Picture So no, this story isn’t really about TikTok or Tubi. It’s about the emergence of a new system where development starts in public, validation happens in real time, and platforms act as accelerators, not gatekeepers. Creators who understand story and smart deal structure will rise to the top. Hollywood isn’t going to disappear. It is decentralizing. And in doing so, it is creating more entry points than ever before. But access without strategy doesn’t lead to ownership. And ownership is where the real value is created. If you’re a creator, a filmmaker, a public figure, or someone sitting on a story that matters, this moment should feel both exciting and clarifying. Because the path is becoming more visible. Start with your story. Develop it intentionally. Build your audience. Structure your IP. Then scale. That’s how you go from feed to franchise. And that’s how you operate in a world where the new studio system isn’t coming. It’s already here. With the right media lens, you can see it hiding in plain sight.
I recently watched All the Empty Rooms, the Academy-Award winning documentary short film on Netflix and I haven’t been able to shake it. Not because it’s loud or dramatic. It’s not. In fact, it’s the opposite. It’s quiet. Patient. It lingers. It is honest and simple. And it is quite powerful. I think that is why it stays with me. Watching it, I realized that this wasn’t something that suddenly became a film. This was something that had been unfolding for years. Seven years, to be exact. It didn’t begin as a documentary project. That’s the part I think matters most, especially if you’ve spent any time in journalism. Because films like this don’t come out of nowhere. They come out of work that, in many cases, has already been done. I think there is a lesson here for all storytellers, but journalists especially. It Started the Way These Stories Often Start It started with reporting. It started with showing up, asking questions, and building trust over time. Sadly, the journalist at the center of All the Empty Rooms had been covering school shootings for years. Not just parachuting in for headlines, but returning, revisiting, staying in relationship with the people living in the aftermath. And over time, something shifted. When you cover enough of these stories, there’s a risk that sets in, not just for the audience, but for the person doing the work. A kind of cultural numbness. Another headline. Another mass shooting tragedy. Another news cycle. I think what began to take hold for the journalist was a discomfort with that rhythm. Because what he was seeing up close didn’t feel like headlines. It felt like lives that had been interrupted. Rooms that had been left behind. Families carrying something that doesn’t resolve. CBS journalist Steve Hartman started to realize that the way these stories were being told, fast, efficient, fact-driven, wasn’t capturing what he was experiencing. For him the question became: What would it look like to tell this differently? The Ethical Weight of Going Deeper That question isn’t just creative. It’s ethical. Because once you decide to go deeper, you’re asking something of people. You’re asking to enter their space. Their homes. And in this case, that wasn’t taken lightly. In fact, there was real hesitation. A kind of dread, even, about what it would mean to show up with a film crew and ask families, who had already been through so much, to open their doors again. There’s a line you don’t want to cross. As a journalist, you’re trained to be mindful of that. To not exploit. To not intrude. And yet, something unexpected happened. Families said yes. Not because they wanted to relive the worst moment of their lives. But because they understood what he was trying to do. He wasn’t there to document the tragedy. He was there to document the life. That distinction matters. He was interested in who their child was. What they loved. What filled those rooms before they were empty. In a way, he was helping them protect something that felt at risk of being lost—not just memory, but identity. Not just how their child died, but how they lived. The Power of Small Details That intention shows up in the way the film is constructed. There’s no rush to get to the point. No urgency to explain everything. Instead, the camera lingers. On photographs. On objects. On rooms that still hold the shape of someone who isn’t there anymore. And that’s where the film does something that reporting alone can’t. Because when you read an article, you move at the pace of information and your deadline. When you watch a film like this, you move at the pace of presence. You sit in it. You notice things you might otherwise pass over. A jersey on the wall. A bed that hasn’t been made. A photograph that suddenly carries more weight than it ever did before. Those details don’t just support the story. They are the story. A Deliberately Narrow Frame One of the most interesting creative decisions in All the Empty Rooms is how narrow it is. This isn’t a sweeping examination of school violence. It doesn’t try to cover every angle or offer a comprehensive analysis like college thesis. It stays focused. Photographing rooms. The elements are rooms. Photographs. Fragments of conversation. Personal video clips. A reporter carrying the weight of the story. And the reporting journey that ties it all together. That constraint is what gives it power. Because instead of expanding outward, the film goes inward. It doesn’t try to explain everything. It lets you feel something. And that’s a different kind of storytelling. Why This Became a Short Film I think this is where a lot of people misunderstand the role of short films. There’s an assumption that a short is just a smaller version of a feature. But in cases like this, the short format isn’t a limitation. Quite the opposite. This film works because it’s compressed. Because it doesn’t overextend. Because it trusts that the weight of what you’re seeing doesn’t need to be stretched into something bigger to be meaningful. In fact, doing so might have diluted it. What you have here is essentially a single premise: What remains after someone is gone. And instead of building that into a broader narrative with multiple arcs and threads, the film stays with that premise. It isn’t overthinking it. It is built with quiet observation. Verité. Silence. Detail. It is powerful because of that. It becomes immersive precisely because it doesn’t try to be expansive. And that’s a lesson in and of itself. Not every story needs to be bigger. Some stories need to be more focused. The Moment the Story Changed If you step back and look at this from a process standpoint, there’s a moment in every project like this where something shifts. Where the person doing the work realizes: This isn’t just an article. That moment doesn’t come from nowhere. It comes from accumulation. From years of interviews. From relationships that have been built. From material that has been gathered but not fully used. Because in journalism, you often collect far more than you publish. You distill. You compress. You extract what fits the format and your deadline. But the full story - the conversations, the pauses, the emotional texture— often stays behind. In filmmaking, that’s the raw material. And in this case, that material had been building for years. Seven years of it. At some point, the realization becomes unavoidable: There’s more here. Talk to any journalist and they will tell you they wish they had more time and space to go deeper and tell the more impactful story. I’m grateful that Steve Hartman and photographer Lou Bopp embarked on this journey together and decided to go the next step of bringing in Joshua Seftel to document the journey. What This Says About Journalism This is the part that keeps coming back to me. Because if you’re a journalist, none of this should feel foreign. You already know how to find stories. You know how to build trust. You know how to ask the questions that matter. You’re already doing the hardest part. What’s different is how that work gets developed. In journalism, the goal is to make deadline. In filmmaking, the goal is to build something that can be experienced over time. And that shift from output to development is where I see the biggest gap. Because most stories are treated as something you finish. You write them. You publish them. You move on. You’re on the deadline hamster wheel. That is how I felt working in baseball. After today’s game, we haven another game, and another and so on. But in the context of this story, what if that’s not the end? What if it’s the beginning? The Stories That Stay with You Every journalist I know has a few stories that don’t leave them. The ones that stick. The ones where the relationship didn’t end when the article was published or the story was broadcast. The ones where you know, deep down, that you only told part of it. Those are the stories I think about when I watch a film like All the Empty Rooms. Because those are the stories that have the potential to become something more. Not because they’re bigger. But because they’re deeper. From Reporting to Filmmaking When I talk about STORYSMART®, one of the core ideas I come back to is this: You’re not just creating content. You’re creating assets. And what you have, if you’ve been doing this work for any length of time, is a body of material that likely goes far beyond what you’ve published. Interviews. Audio. Video. Notes. Relationships. Access. Ideas that won’t leave your head. Probably multiple story angles and competing ideas fight for primacy in your brain. I know I get that way. It is almost like a March Madness bracket of ideas that pull at your heart. I’m here to tell you that all of body of work in your files are storytelling source materials. It might be the foundation of a film, but it only becomes that if you recognize it. If you treat it as something worth developing. If you think beyond the first version of the story and you are willing to collaborate with others to take it to the next level. Coming Back to the Rooms When I think about All the Empty Rooms, I don’t just think about what’s on screen. I think about everything that made it possible. The years of reporting. The relationships that were built. The trust that was earned. The hesitation that had to be worked through. The decision to go deeper. The willingness to give back and share a gift with the families you covered. And ultimately, the choice to tell the story in a way that resists the pace of everything else around it. To slow down. To sit with absence. To let the rooms speak. That doesn’t happen by accident. The Question I Keep Coming Back To If you’re reading this and you’ve spent time reporting, I think there’s a simple question worth asking: What story have you already told that isn’t finished? Not unfinished because you didn’t do the work. Unfinished because there’s more there than the format allowed you to share. Those ideas fighting to advance further. I can tell you this for fact: there are stories sitting in notebooks, in transcripts, in hard drives right now that have the potential to become something far more enduring than a single article. In some rare cases, it might be something like All the Empty Rooms. Something that doesn’t just inform. But stays with you. From reporting to something that lasts in the hearts and minds of your audience. And once you start to see your work through that lens, you begin to realize the story may already be there. The question is whether you’re willing to follow it a little further. About the Storytelling for ALL® Newsletter The Storytelling for ALL® LinkedIn Newsletter is a biweekly newsletter examining how stories are developed, protected, and brought to life in today’s evolving storytelling economy. Every other week, I explore the creative, ethical, and economic forces shaping books, films, documentaries, and other story work through the lens of development, rights, collaboration, and long-term value. Written primarily for creators and collaborators, the newsletter also serves story sources who want to understand how their true stories move from lived experience to finished work and how better structure early leads to better outcomes later. For deeper studio thinking, tools, and updates, The STORYSMART® Way is our monthly email newsletter for members of the Storytelling for ALL® community. About Our STORYSMART® Perspective We approach storytelling and filmmaking as a long-term, rights-first business rather than a project-by-project creative exercise. Our focus is on understanding how stories create value over time through ownership, disciplined development, and thoughtful risk management. The ideas shared here are intended to contribute to a broader conversation about sustainable, independent media, not to promote specific projects or investment opportunities.
In 1989, something unusual happened in Hollywood. An actor who was already one of the biggest stars in the world decided to take less money. That actor was Jack Nicholson. The film was Batman. And the role was the Joker. Nicholson could have demanded a massive paycheck. At the time, he was already commanding salaries around $10 million per film, extraordinary money in the late 1980s. Instead, he negotiated a different kind of deal. He took a lower upfront salary and asked for something far more interesting: A share of the upside. Specifically, Nicholson negotiated participation in the film’s gross box office, along with revenue from licensing and merchandising tied to the character and the film. While estimates vary, the consensus is that his deal ultimately earned him somewhere between $60 million and $90 million. For a film released in 1989, that was staggering. But the bigger story isn’t just how much money Nicholson made. The real lesson is how he thought about value. Nicholson wasn’t just negotiating as an actor. He was negotiating like a partner in a story. And that mindset of understanding the economic value of storytelling offers a masterclass for anyone working in the creative economy today. A Time When Batman Was a Risk It’s easy to forget how uncertain the project looked at the time. It was a different world then. It wasn’t a foregone conclusion that the film would be successful. Today, Batman is one of the most valuable franchises in entertainment history. But in the late 1980s, the character’s most prominent screen appearance was the campy 1960s television series starring Adam West that I watched in syndication growing up in 70s and early 80s. The darker, cinematic version we now associate with Batman didn’t yet exist. It was more “cartoonish” and cheesier. Rebooting Batman for the big screen was a risk. The studio taking that gamble was Warner Bros., and the director attached to reinvent the character was Tim Burton, who at the time had directed Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure and Beetlejuice, was considered talented but unconventional. The film was a major bet. But Nicholson understood something important about bets. They become less risky when the right people attach themselves to them. He understood the leverage he had, as well as impact his involvement would have in the production. When Nicholson agreed to play the Joker, the project immediately gained credibility. His involvement signaled to audiences, investors, and the industry that this wasn’t just another comic book adaptation. It was an event. That’s the power of attaching talent to a project. Certain names bring legitimacy. They bring attention. They bring marketing gravity. And they often bring audiences. In other words, they bring financial value. It is what they mean by “bankable name.” Nicholson knew that his name would dramatically increase the film's chances of success. So instead of treating the project as just another acting job, he negotiated accordingly. Like a vested partner. The Bet That Paid Off The gamble worked. Batman became a global blockbuster, grossing more than $400 million worldwide, an enormous number at the time. It launched a new era of comic book films and helped establish the modern superhero franchise model. But perhaps even more importantly, it helped unlock the long-term value of the Batman intellectual property. That value didn’t end with one movie. It became a massive money-producing story franchise with all kinds of derivatives springing from that success. Over the decades that followed, Batman became a massive portfolio of storytelling assets: films, animated series, television shows, merchandise, licensing deals, games, streaming content, and more. The cumulative value of that franchise now reaches into the multi-billions. That is the power of story-driven intellectual property. It compounds. Nicholson understood that dynamic before most people in Hollywood did. By negotiating participation in the story's success, not just his performance, he aligned himself with the long-term economics of the franchise. In effect, Nicholson traded short-term certainty for long-term participation. And he won. He won big. Why This Deal Changed Hollywood Nicholson’s deal didn’t just make headlines. It helped change how creative talent thinks about compensation. For A-listers, it became a template. It impacted the talent market like how a big free-agent deal in baseball impacts other players entering free agency. The market is always moving. The entertainment industry is no different. For decades, actors were largely paid salaries. The studio took the financial risk and the studio captured most of the upside. Nicholson’s agreement demonstrated something different. He learned a lot from his One Flew Over Cookies Nest back-end deal. “Do I look like the kind of clown that can start a movement?” the Joker once asked. Well, Nicholson wasn’t crazy or joking. He started something. Looking back now, it is a masterclass lesson for us. When key talent contributes meaningfully to a project's success, sharing in the upside makes sense. It aligns incentives. It rewards creativity. And it encourages collaboration. It creates more “ownership” in an agency and incentive context. Today, backend participation is common for top actors, directors, and producers. It’s now an expected part of major deals in Hollywood. But deals like that didn’t appear out of nowhere. They evolved because people like Nicholson demonstrated that creative talent could think like partners, not just hired hands. That shift changed the economics of filmmaking, and it reinforced a fundamental truth about storytelling businesses: The story is the asset. All who contribute to it should share in the rewards. Why Story IP Matters More Than Ever This idea becomes even clearer when you look at the broader business context of the entertainment industry today. Major studios aren’t valuable just because of their production capabilities. Their true value often lies in their libraries of intellectual property, the characters, stories, and worlds they own and control. Those catalogs have generated revenue across multiple platforms for decades. Smart stewardship of IP is a critical cornerstone of how creators should be approaching their work in our modern media landscape. Anything otherwise would be malpractice in my mind. While the world is buzzing about two other letters – “A” and “I” – Artificial Intelligence, the smart folks are focused on two letters that are much more important – “I” and “P”. Intellectual Property. Big catalogs of IP are one of the reasons companies like Warner Bros. Discovery remain attractive targets for mergers and acquisitions. Their balance sheets contain something incredibly valuable: vast collections of storytelling IP that can be exploited to create wealth for decades to come. Every time a classic property is rebooted, adapted, streamed, licensed, or merchandised, the value of those assets continues to grow. Batman is one of those crown jewels. And Nicholson recognized that long before most people were talking about “IP portfolios.” He understood that when you participate in a great story, you’re participating in an asset that can live far beyond a single production. It can live on well past you. It can create profound generational wealth. I think about that a lot. A kid from Missouri drew a cartoon mouse and built an empire that now carries my Mizzou basketball and football games. That is the power of creative IP. The Lesson for Creators Today Jack Nicholson’s deal offers several lessons for creators working today, especially independent filmmakers, writers, and producers. First, creative contribution has economic value. Actors, writers, directors, editors, and producers all contribute to the success of a project. When their work meaningfully improves the story, it increases the value of the final asset. Second, attaching talent changes everything. Projects gain legitimacy when respected collaborators join them. Investors feel more confident. Audiences pay attention. Momentum builds. This dynamic plays out constantly in the film industry. The right director, writer, or actor can transform how a project is perceived. Third, shared upside creates alignment. When everyone involved in a project contributes to its success, they show up differently. The energy shifts from “this is my job” to “this is our project.” That difference can be enormous. And that principle brings me to something I’m experiencing firsthand. Building a Film the Nicholson Way I’m currently directing a documentary film that I believe has the potential to reach audiences meaningfully. Like many independent projects, it’s being produced on a modest budget. But one of the ways we’re approaching the project is directly inspired by the philosophy behind Nicholson’s deal. Instead of trying to pay everyone large upfront fees, which would be impossible on an independent budget, we’ve structured agreements that combine modest compensation with generous backend participation. In other words, we’re sharing the upside. That approach allowed us to attach talented collaborators who believe in the story and want to help bring it to life at the highest level. The goal is simple: Produce a film that looks like it cost ten or twenty times what it did. That becomes possible when people care deeply about the outcome. When everyone has a stake in the project's success, the creative energy multiplies. The Philosophy Behind STORYSMART ® This idea of shared upside isn’t just a tactic for one film. It’s part of a broader philosophy that guides the work we’re building with STORYSMART ® . Storytelling is fundamentally collaborative. Great stories are rarely created by a single person working alone. They are built by teams of talented people bringing their skills together. When those collaborators share in the story's success, everyone wins. Creators feel valued. Projects attract stronger talent, and the resulting stories become more powerful. Jack Nicholson may not have used the language of “story IP strategy” when he negotiated his Batman deal, but he clearly understood the underlying economics. He recognized that the true value wasn’t just the paycheck for playing the Joker. The real value was the story itself and the franchise it could become. By betting on that story, Nicholson didn’t just play the Joker. He rewrote the rules of creative economics, and more than three decades later, the lesson still holds. When everyone shares the upside, everyone cares more about the outcome. That simple idea may be one of the most powerful tools storytellers have. About the Storytelling for ALL ® Newsletter The Storytelling for ALL ® LinkedIn Newsletter is a biweekly newsletter examining how stories are developed, protected, and brought to life in today’s evolving storytelling economy. Every other week, I explore the creative, ethical, and economic forces shaping books, films, documentaries, and other story work through the lens of development, rights, collaboration, and long-term value. Written primarily for creators and collaborators, the newsletter also serves as a resource for story sources who want to understand how their true stories move from lived experience to finished work and how better structuring early leads to better outcomes later. For deeper studio thinking, tools, and updates, The STORYSMART ® Way is our monthly email newsletter for members of the Storytelling for ALL ® community. About Our STORYSMART ® Perspective We approach storytelling and filmmaking as a long-term, rights-first business rather than a project-by-project creative exercise. Our focus is on understanding how stories create value over time through ownership, disciplined development, and thoughtful risk management. The ideas shared here are intended to contribute to a broader conversation about sustainable, independent media, not to promote specific projects or investment opportunities.
A Storytelling Geography Lesson Developed in New York. Set in St. Louis. Shot in Georgia. St. Louis, MO March 1, 2026 - When DTF St. Louis premieres today, the first question many people in St. Louis are asking isn’t about the plot. It’s about geography. “Why didn’t they shoot it here?” It’s a fair question. The title carries the city’s name. The setting signals Midwest specificity. For a region working to rebuild its production economy, it feels like a missed opportunity. But that reaction, while understandable, conflates three very different decisions that modern producers make. Story may be local. Production is not. DTF St. Louis is a clean case study in how contemporary projects move through the system. The underlying inspiration began in New York, a true-crime narrative centered on a dentist’s murder trial. That intellectual property was developed for television, reshaped, retitled, and ultimately relocated narratively to St. Louis. Then, when it came time to execute the production at scale, the series was shot in Georgia. New York. St. Louis. Georgia. Three geographies. Three separate strategic decisions: where the story originated, where the narrative would live creatively, and where the show would physically be made. In today’s industry, those rarely align. That isn’t dysfunction. It’s discipline. Projects evolve under commercial pressure. A long-form article becomes a development vehicle. A true-crime framework becomes a reimagined limited series. A coastal story becomes a Midwestern one because the tone, brand positioning, and thematic resonance work better there. Nothing about that process is accidental. IP is fluid. Development is iterative. Titles are market-tested. Settings are chosen for psychological effect as much as authenticity. And when a project finally receives a green light, the last decision — where to physically produce it — is not made on civic loyalty. It is made on math. That is the part of the conversation we tend to skip. If we want to understand why a series set in St. Louis was produced in Georgia, we must stop treating production as a cultural statement and start treating it as what it is: a capital allocation decision. The Evolution of the IP: From True Crime to Limited Series When I look at DTF St. Louis, I don’t just see a provocative title (I had to google “what does DTF mean?”) and a new limited series. I see a case study in how intellectual property moves through the development pipeline. The seed of this project was not Midwestern at all. It began as a New York true-crime story, a long-form magazine piece about a dentist accused of murder, wrapped in layers of betrayal, secrecy, and psychological ambiguity. That kind of storytelling source material is catnip for premium television. It has built-in stakes, moral gray zones, and a legal framework that lends itself to episodic tension. At that stage, the asset wasn’t a television series. It was an article. But in our industry, a well-reported narrative isn’t just journalism. It’s option-able IP. From there, the story entered the machinery of development. Talent attached. The concept evolved. The framing shifted. What began as a direct adaptation gradually became something looser — inspired by, rather than bound to, the original facts. Titles changed. Creative emphasis shifted. By the time HBO ordered the project under the name DTF St. Louis, it was described not as a strict true-crime retelling, but as a wholly original limited series. That shift matters. When I talk to creators about development, I remind them that IP is rarely static. A magazine article becomes a screenplay draft. A screenplay draft becomes a packaging vehicle. A packaging vehicle becomes a reimagined series. Each stage involves recalibration of legal exposure, tone, casting realities, market positioning, and network branding. The location moves from New York to St. Louis wasn’t random. It was strategic. Midwestern settings carry cultural shorthand. They suggest normalcy, stability, the illusion of order. That makes the moral unraveling feel sharper. More subversive. The title alone signals tension between surface respectability and hidden chaos. I don’t know if the fact that I had to google “DTF” to discover it’s intended meaning says something about me personally, my age, my demographic, or the fact that I live in the Midwest. I expect it may be part of the overall marketing strategy. My point is that each element of the project development is strategic. Development is not sentimental. It is iterative and commercial. And here’s the part many emerging creators miss. None of these evolutions betray the original story. They optimize it. They reshape it so it can survive inside a high-budget production environment. That’s the difference between having a story and having a producible asset. By the time DTF St. Louis reached the production stage, the creative geography had been decided. The tone had been locked. The cast had been attached. The network had written the check. Only then does the next question become urgent: Where do we make it? And that is where art gives way to arithmetic. Why Georgia? The Production Math Once a series is greenlit, the conversation changes. Development is creative. Production is financial. When you evaluate where a project should shoot, you shouldn’t start with sentiment. You should start with a spreadsheet. Georgia has spent more than a decade building one of the most predictable production environments in North America. The state offers a 20% base tax credit on qualified in-state spend, with an additional 10% uplift for meeting promotional requirements. Just as important, Georgia does not operate under a restrictive annual cap that forces productions to compete for limited allocations. That predictability matters. Investors price uncertainty. Producers avoid it. But incentives are only one part of the equation. Georgia has depth. It has crew density. It has established sound stages. It has experienced department heads across every category from cinematography and production design to post-production and VFX coordination. It has vendors who understand studio workflows. It has accountants who know how to audit credits efficiently. It has bonding comfort. It has repetition. That ecosystem reduces risk. When you are managing a multi-million-dollar limited series with A-list talent and compressed schedules, risk is the enemy. Delays cost money. Flying in department heads drives up per diem. Housing shortages inflate budgets. Thin crew benches increase overtime and burnout. Production friction erodes margins. In a mature market, those variables are more controlled. Now contrast that with a state rebuilding its incentive program. Missouri currently operates with a $16 million annual cap and split funding pools — one $8 million allocation for episodic programming and another $8 million for feature film. That structure exists for understandable “horse trading” legislative reasons. Compromise is how public policy gets passed. I’ve worked in that arena. I know firsthand that clean, elegant statutes rarely survive the negotiation process intact. Interests are balanced. Fiscal conservatives demand caps. Regional priorities get layered in. Language gets complex. When I first reviewed Missouri’s new tax credit law, my first reaction was that it was unnecessarily complicated and that complexity would introduce friction. And like the annual credit caps, that friction introduces risk. From a creator or investor standpoint, the question isn’t whether a program exists. It’s whether the program is durable, scalable, and operationally smooth. Georgia answers yes on all three, while Missouri is still proving itself. This is not an indictment. It’s a maturity curve. Georgia didn’t become a production powerhouse overnight. It built volume over time. Volume built workforce. Workforce attracted more volume. That flywheel effect is what transforms incentives from temporary subsidies into permanent industry infrastructure. Producers understand that. When a show like DTF St. Louis moves forward, the production team isn’t asking, “Where would we like this to shoot?” They’re asking: Where can we monetize the incentive efficiently? Where is the crew bench deep enough to avoid importing half the department heads? Where are stages reliably available? Where will lenders feel comfortable? Where does the schedule face the least volatility? Those are capital allocation questions. And capital, by its nature, flows toward predictability. That’s the production math. It’s not emotional. It’s not political. It’s fiduciary. For creators and investors who want their projects to survive, that mindset isn’t optional. It’s professional discipline. The Chicken-and-Egg Trap States trying to build a film economy face a brutal loop. They need tax credits to attract production. They need production to build a workforce. They need workforce depth to retain production. They need retention to justify the credits politically. Break any link in that chain and momentum stalls. If credits are capped, larger shows hesitate. If programs change frequently, lenders grow cautious. If crew depth is thin, productions import labor. When productions import labor, the optics weaken. And when the optics weaken, the political durability of the program weakens with it. Georgia escaped that trap through longevity and repetition. Missouri is earlier in the cycle. For creators and investors, the lesson is sobering but clarifying: a newly enacted incentive does not immediately level the playing field. Ecosystems mature over years, not legislative sessions. And capital does not wait for ecosystems to catch up. Production as Capital Allocation At a certain point in the life of a project, the conversation stops being creative and becomes financial. When you raise investor money, whether that’s private equity, gap financing, pre-sales, or your own retained earnings, you assume a fiduciary obligation. You are no longer just telling a story. You are managing risk. Where you shoot is one of the largest risk variables in the entire equation. The headline incentive percentage is rarely the real story. What matters is the net position after audit, legal, and monetization costs. Is the credit transferable? How liquid is the market for selling it? How quickly can it be monetized? Is there an annual cap that creates allocation uncertainty? How long has the program existed? How politically durable is it? Investors care about those questions. So do lenders. So do completion bond companies. Then there’s labor depth. A 30% credit on paper can evaporate quickly if you’re flying in department heads from Los Angeles or New York because the local bench isn’t deep enough. Housing costs rise. Per diems’ stack. Travel days multiply. Overtime creeps in when teams aren’t accustomed to the pace of a series schedule. Infrastructure reduces friction. Friction inflates budgets. When I look at markets like Georgia, Vancouver, Toronto, the UK, or parts of Australia and New Zealand, I see not just incentives, but repetition. Repetition builds experience. Experience builds efficiency. Efficiency protects margin. Margin protects investor confidence. There’s also timing. Episodic television operates on compressed calendars. If a capped program forces you to wait for allocation approval or introduces uncertainty about whether funds will still be available when you apply, that uncertainty must be priced into your plan. And uncertainty carries a cost. Creators sometimes resist this framing because it feels cold. They want authenticity. They want civic loyalty. They want to shoot where the story is set. I understand that instinct. But if the choice is between emotional alignment and financial viability, a professional chooses viability. That doesn’t mean geography is irrelevant. It means geography is evaluated through a risk-adjusted lens. When you start thinking this way, the map changes. Canada becomes a legitimate alternative because of stacked federal and provincial credits and favorable currency exchange. The UK becomes attractive for high-end television because of its stability and studio capacity. Eastern Europe enters the conversation because of labor competitiveness. Australia and New Zealand become strategic plays for large-scale productions. Production becomes jurisdiction shopping. That phrase can sound harsh, but it is simply disciplined thinking. Capital moves toward predictability. It moves toward environments where execution risk is minimized and margins are protected. If you are serious about building sustainable projects, not just getting one made, you must internalize that logic. Story is art. Production is strategy. And strategy, at its core, is the intelligent deployment of capital. The Global Production Economy If you zoom out far enough, the question isn’t “Why Georgia instead of Missouri?” The real question is: why assume the production needs to stay in the United States at all? We operate inside a global production economy now. That shift is not theoretical. It’s structural. Canada has been doubling for American cities for decades. Vancouver and Toronto routinely stand in for New York, Chicago, Boston — sometimes entire states. Producers stack federal and provincial incentives, benefit from favorable currency exchange, and tap into deep crew bases that have grown alongside American studio demand. To the audience, it reads as domestic. To the producer, it reads as efficient. The United Kingdom has built itself into a high-end television and franchise powerhouse. Long-term incentive stability, studio infrastructure, and experienced crews have made it a magnet for prestige series and tentpole films. Australia and New Zealand have leveraged similar strategies for large-scale productions. Parts of Eastern Europe compete aggressively on labor and service costs. Each region offers a slightly different financial profile, but the logic is consistent: predictability, scale, and operational maturity attract capital. This is not about chasing the cheapest option. It’s about optimizing the full stack — incentive structure, currency position, workforce depth, and execution certainty. When streamers and studios evaluate where to produce, they don’t start with sentiment. They start with a global map. They compare jurisdictions the way investors compare markets. They ask where the environment is stable, where the math is clean, where the infrastructure supports speed. Capital flows accordingly. That reality can feel unsettling if you’re thinking locally. But from a creator’s perspective, it’s empowering. The map is larger than your home state. Your project is not confined to one jurisdiction’s politics. You are not limited to one incentive regime. If you want your story to travel, you must think beyond municipal pride and into global strategy. The production economy is no longer regional. It is competitive, mobile, and international. And the creators who thrive in this environment are the ones who understand that mobility is not betrayal — it is professionalism. Emotional vs. Professional Response When a show carries your city’s name but shoots elsewhere, it feels personal. I want Missouri to win. I want workforce growth here. I want infrastructure maturity. But when I’m producing a project with capital at risk, my obligation shifts. My job is not to make a symbolic statement. My job is to deliver on time, on budget, and at the highest possible quality. The emotional response says we should support local. The professional response asks where this project has the highest probability of success. Sustainable creators learn to hold both truths at once. My STORYSMART® Message When I step back from DTF St. Louis — from New York to St. Louis to Georgia — I don’t see controversy. I see clarity. Stories travel. Intellectual property evolves. Production moves. Capital seeks predictability. I talk often about ownership and professional discipline. Owning your story is the first step. Developing it strategically and professionally is the second step. Producing it where the math works is the third. Story is art. Production is strategy. And strategy requires clarity. Geography is an input. Discipline is the key to making it all work. In a global production economy, that mindset isn’t optional. It’s the difference between chasing projects and building value that compounds over time . About Our STORYSMART® Perspective We approach storytelling and filmmaking as a long-term, rights-first business rather than a project-by-project creative exercise. Our focus is on understanding how stories create value over time through ownership, disciplined development, and thoughtful risk management. The ideas shared here are intended to contribute to a broader conversation about sustainable, independent media, not to promote specific projects or investment opportunities.