Reviewing Variety's decision to nix top crix (TOH, TW, TBP)

By Nancy Tartaglione

The news that hit late yesterday that Variety had let go its veteran chief critic Todd McCarthy - not to mention such stalwarts as Derek Elley and David Rooney - has spilled its fair share of Internet ink. Following is a round-up of some of the fallout.

TV critic Brian Lowry will stay on but features editor Sharon Swart, copy editors Carmel Dagan, Matt Coltrin and Gary North and paginator Danielle Grimes are also cut. (Full disclosure: I worked for Variety in Paris and LA from 1997-2000.)

Anne Thompson, a former Variety staffer, notes today in her blog: "Problem is, I was well-paid, as were McCarthy and Rooney. Nonetheless, they are necessities. Without them, Variety is doomed. Along with the badly handled recent fracas over Robert Koehler's review of 'Iron Cross' this sends a dubious message to Hollywood: Variety is running out of cash."

However, in Variety editor Tim Gray's memo to staff, he urges them to "Ignore the bloggers (who obviously are trying in vain to steal our readers and our advertisers), ignore the obits for Old Media, ignore the negatives and the craziness that this economy has created. The people in the Depression bounced back, and so will all of us who are going through this crisis. I cannot repeat this often enough: Variety is in profit, which means we're here to stay."

As for McCarthy, who had been at the trade for 31 years, he told The Big Picture blog, "I never saw this coming."

Variety president Neil Stiles told TBP that he knew the paper would take a PR hit by axing its two top critics, "But you can't make a decision based on the PR gloss. You have to do what's right for the business. This was a decision that was made on an unemotional basis. We just don't feel that we need to own our chief reviewer. There's no reason why, going forward, that we can't do all reviews on a freelance basis."

McCarthy told The Wrap that the idea of going freelance had been broached, "it came up - well, maybe in the future."

As for what it means, McCarthy said, "Everyone's going to speculate, and all I can say, it's the end of something. What that is I don't know. I know what it means for me...Everyone will have a take on that. They wouldn't have had three rounds of layoffs if things were fine. No one denies there are financial issues. They say they're still in profit. It's sad. It's the end of something. You can say it's the end - the end, or you can say it's the end of the way it's always been done. It's the end of me."

Roger Ebert, for his part, tweeted "Variety fires Todd McCarthy and I cancel my subscription. He was my reason to read the paper. RIP, schmucks."