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| His Girl Friday's depiction of dedicated journalism wouldn't fly in today's Silicon Valley-dominated hellscape |
I was wandering through the magazine section of my local Half Price Books yesterday when an exciting sight captured my eyeballs. There, almost entirely hidden from the views of casual observers, was an Entertainment Weekly issue from February 2007. Specifically, it was issue #922 from February 23, 2007, which provided final predictions over who would win in what categories at the 79th Academy Awards. This issue's so obscure that I can't find images of its cover on Google Images nor in Entertainment Weekly's Archive.org collection of 2007 covers. An incredibly ominous Justin Timberlake cover made the cut in the latter group, but not this Oscars-themed issue.
Full disclosure: Entertainment Weekly magazines are a key reason why I'm a pop culture journalist. These magazines amplified my love for cinema and all artistic media. Starting in 2008, I collected them religiously, meaning I now own 14 years' worth of these things. They're each a snapshot of a moment in pop culture history and encapsulate so many memories of me discovering new directors, indie movies, musicians, or TV shows. It's always a treat to stumble onto a pre-2008 issue and add it to my collection, especially this one that's so endearingly an early 2007 time capsule. 31 pages into this issue, there's a brief profile of The Wire actor Idris Elba and his then-imminent first major film roles in 28 Weeks Later and American Gangster. "I have all these films, but there's no sense of who I am as an artist yet. So, I'm gonna go out and there and sell my soul," Elba remarks in the closing lines of this Missy Schwartz-penned piece.
There's also a new installment of The EW Pop Culture Personality Test with none other than Carrie Fisher, who delivers so many wonderful answers to questions like "who areyou most often mistaken for?" and "which talk-show host smells the best?" Fisher tragically passed away in 2016, yet her witty barbs in this issue made her as alive as ever. Then there were the intriguing looks at who the writers thought would totally win the 78th Academy Awards (oh, we were so confident Eddie Murphy in Dreamgirls had the Best Supporting Actor Oscar in the bag) and that week's edition of The Must List. The latter is a fixture dedicated to "ten things we love this week" that lets readers know about awesome artistic endeavors, ranging from Christopher Eccleston's work on Heroes to the DMZ: Volume 2 graphic novel to the outstanding German movie The Lives of Others.
It was enthralling to read this issue even beyond an undeniable dopamine rush of nostalgia. However, there was also something tragic about this experience. I can't imagine this issue existing in the modern world of entertainment journalism. The few corporations that own everything now have no room for this kind of material.
Now, I'm not going to let my nostalgia for Entertainment Weekly cloud the very real realities of this publication. This was not Cahiers du Cinema or a public good like a local library devoid of any capitalistic intrusions. Entertainment Weekly issues, first and foremost, were meant to showcase advertisements. Flip through this February 2007 issue and you get ads for M&M's (complete with M&M versions of Joan Rivers and her sister), cars, and Verizon flip-phones that have "state of the art" music capabilities. The big news stories in this issue, meanwhile, are tied to the Academy Award broadcast as well as new Jericho episodes. They're meant to highlight new TV programs and get more eyeballs on the commercials contained within those shows.
Still, those vintage Entertainment Weekly issues packed a lot into one magazine. Over the years (starting with July 2008's Issue #1001), the publication would keep condensing how much material was covered in an average Entertainment Weekly issue. Certain sections were dropped, text got bigger, word count for pieces got smaller. This 2007 Oscars issue, though, was vintage Entertainment Weekly in its in-depth nature. Within the pages of this text, there's not only an Oscars rundown and other central stories, but also a look at new theatrical movies, home video releases, books, music, and a Stephen King essay on the then-recently deceased Anna Nicole Smith.
There's so much art and pop culture covered in here, rather than just what was hot on ABC that week. Everything from Flushed Away to The Lives of Others to Sidney Poitier's memoir gets a chance to shine in the spotlight. No wonder these issues tantalized my brain as a youngster. They really let one explore the full range of the pop culture landscape. The lengthier nature of the reviews, celebrity breakdowns, and personal essays, meanwhile, lets you marinate in certain thoughts or artistic endeavors. This Entertainment Weekly issue is all about inviting readers to know more about the world around them rather than jostling them off to a new webpage or section.
There's also something delightful about the concrete nature of vintage Entertainment Weekly issues (or any print publication). For one thing, so much online writing is the very definition of temporary. There are various sections of my beloved The Dissolve that are no longer accessible. Clicking on various Buzzfeed pages published in the mid-2010s will bring you to dead links or error pages. I had over 600 Collider pieces wiped from the web when that site fired me in early 2024. Forever and ever, though, the words that these Entertainment Weekly writers expressed are stuck on paper. You can remove them from the internet, but physical proof still exists.
That concrete nature also means every Entertainment Weekly subscriber got the same issue of this publication. The only variation was if they had fun fluctuating covers (like the four covers for a Simpsons Movie issue), but even there, everything inside was the same. Social media and streaming platform algorithms are all about keeping people divorced from each other. As texts like the Laura Bates book Men Who Hate Women, we now exist in a Silicon Valley hellscape where you're fed more and more of what you already experienced. No need to venture out into new genres or strains of cinema. Meanwhile, even something as simple as the charts of the 20 biggest movies at the box office could expose people to smaller features like Pan's Labyrinth.
Late 2000s/early 2010s Entertainment Weekly subscribers may have gotten frustrated at opening their mailboxes and seeing yet another Twilight-themed cover. However, I now crave the idea of receiving and responding to art that isn't just made for my sensibilities, rather than just social media feeds regurgitating the same trash every day. Plus, not just modeling the issues to what individual people already know is how I first got exposed to Stephen King. This horror legend did recurring Entertainment Weekly essays, which were the first pieces of King writing I ever consumed.
Long before I dove into Christine, Under the Dome, and It, there were those Entertainment Weekly essays where King waxed poetic on frozen Junior Mints (he was totally right, by the way, they're scrumptious). I'm eternally grateful this publication put King on my radar, which wouldn't have been possible if this outlet was only concerned with showing me what I'd already seen.
Meanwhile, the lengthy deep dives into various pop culture properties in this earlier Entertainment Weekly piece are such a refreshing balm in a modern entertainment journalism landscape. EW pieces like a 2008 breakdown of Mike Myers' career were rife with historical context, specific commentary, and bravura in not treating celebrities with kid gloves. Not everything at this publication was hard-hitting journalism, God knows. However, the emphasis on higher word counts and denser essays opened up the door for recurring bursts of interesting journalism.
Wouldn't we all love to have some of that again now that so many publications are owned by one corporation (like Penske Media) and deliver pieces about celebrities/pop culture news that are nothing but fluff? I grew up on Entertainment Weekly pieces unafraid to say "there's something wrong with the blockbuster movie landscape", snarky A.V. Club news reports, and Jim Hill Media breakdowns about Pixar that were dubious about the studio. The idea of publishing pieces about entertainment that expressed uncertainty or even hostility to the "powers-that-be" was normal to me. Now, major media outlets salivate to bolster the image of Sora AI or write pieces hostile to politically active women of color.
We have fewer options than ever for entertainment editorials, and what does exist are often short pieces designed to stroke the egos of CEOs. Again, I'm not trying to paint a hagiographic portrait of Entertainment Weekly that paints this outlet's writers as being crusaders of the truth on par with the journalists seen in Collective. Instead, we should all realize that media journalism has declined so sharply in the last two decades that the once decidedly mainstream Entertainment Weekly feels revolutionary. Customary journalism for the masses in 2007 is a drop of water in a harrowing desert in 2025.
To be sure, quality pop culture journalism still exists today. The problem isn't that nobody can write today, but rather that unchecked corporate consolidation has left the mainstream, easily accessible entertainment outlets husks of their former selves. Just look at how Entertainment Weekly shifted to a monthly release in 2019 before shuttering its print version in 2022. It was the end of an era...but it doesn't have to be the end of quality journalism.
I still believe there's a voracious hunger for the kind of writing contained within the pages of this Entertainment Weekly issue. Entertainment writing that exposes readers to new artists and emphasizes the distinctly human in our art. There are tons of people providing that kind of material today, so I know I'm not alone in this urge. For those looking to support modern quality entertainment writing, here are some great places to check out:
Willow Catelyn Maclay's Patreon
Rendy Reviews
Angelica Jade Bastién's work on Vulture (and anywhere else she writes)
Anything from Siddhant Adlakha
Sam Adams on Slate
Kristen Lopez's The Film Maven
Marya E. Gates on Substack
Michelle Kisner on Substack
Carlos Aguilar
It's important to look back on what we've lost in entertainment journalism over the last 20 years, including how Entertainment Weekly kept adversely consolidating the size of its issues and stories in the years since that fateful 78th Academy Awards issue. But I refuse to lose out hope for the future. Especially when there are both great pop culture writers working today and the joy of those vintage Entertainment Weekly pieces still endures today. 18 years after its publication, I can hold in my hands the hard work, research, and passion that went into this 2007 magazine. The advertisements are amusingly out of date, but good writing endures. Never let corporate consolidation and incessant clickbait tell you otherwise.
With that, allow me to ensure Stephen King, from his Issue #922 essay A Modern Fairy Tale, has the final word here: "Story time's over, kids. You've all been good. So go ahead. Eat your dessert."
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