Panel-to-Panel: Journalisting with the Stars
On the shifting dynamics of celebrity in the many spaces of Press Tour
Panel-to-Panel is my ongoing journal from the bi-annual Television Critics Association Press Tour, as part of Episodic Medium’s Week-to-Week newsletter—it’s free to all subscribers, and will let you know what we’re covering for paid subscribers on a week-to-week basis. For more information on the newsletter, see our About Page.
At the end of Press Tour’s Warner Bros. Studio Day on Tuesday, assembled journalists were surprised during lunch by a special guest: Jennifer Hudson, whose daytime talk show is produced on the Warner Bros. lot. The EGOT winner dropped by with a megaphone to promote her show, thank us for coming, and then usher a group of journalists onto a tram for a trip around the lot. From reports of those who rode with her, she answered questions and sang “And I’m Telling You” on demand, while of course reminding those in attendance to tune in on weekdays.
There are obviously lots of “celebrity sightings” at Press Tour: most panels involve someone who, if you were to walk by them in the street, you’d text your friend about it. And I’m not going to lie and say that you get totally used to it: there’s a certain thrill that’s unavoidable when you see an Oscar winner like Hudson up close and personal, or you realize you’re in Alison Brie’s way as she grabs some Valentine’s candy. And while Press Tour panels are structured and stuffy, with no photos or video allowed, celebrity sightings in the looser space of a Studio visit or the lobby outside the ballroom are much more likely to activate the aura of celebrity, as evidenced by the journalists jockeying for a selfie with Hudson as she made her way to her tram.
For me, I’ve never really valued having photos of myself with assembled celebrities: outside of a posed photo opportunity with “President Grant” from Scandal back in 2013, I don’t think there’s any photo evidence of the people I’ve seen or met over the years. Now, to be clear, this does not apply to Muppets or other costumed characters: when you tell me I can get a photo with Bluey and Bingo, I’m getting a photo with Bluey and Bingo.
But human celebrities? That’s a different story for me. I don’t judge the journalists who feel differently: many use their proximity to celebrities to help build their brands on social media (increasingly necessary in the hellscape of entertainment journalism), while others will take their Jennifer Hudson selfies back to their local papers to excite their readership and prove their bona fides as an industry insider. But for me, it feels weird to take a selfie with a celebrity when they’re “working,” effectively contractually obligated to promote a project and tolerate our interest in their life/show.
I’m sure this is different for journalists who regularly interview talent, and who therefore become friendlier with them: I watched Gina Rodriguez greet a journalist like an old friend after the Not Dead Yet panel last week, seemingly because they had spoken on Zoom multiple times but never met in person. And there are certainly instances where celebrities engage with journalists in a way that dispels a sense of celebrity: a pre-Hamilton Lin-Manuel Miranda actively called out Emily St. James (positively) in a tweet after his Dr. Face Hands panel back in 2013, and was more excited to see her at the cocktail party than anyone was to see him. But overall, I find myself hyper-aware that these people are there doing a job, and given that my job is to gain insight into their work, engaging with them like they’re a celebrity doesn’t seem productive to me.
It’s a topic that’s front of mind at the moment because the day before Hudson created a bit of a frenzy on the Warner Bros. lot, PBS day offered an extremely different approach to “celebrity.” There were, to be clear, some big names at PBS day—while there was nothing comparable to the madness of the year they brought Benedict Cumberbath for Sherlock in 2013 or the Downton Abbey spectacle of 2014, stars like John Lithgow, Dulé Hill, and Shailene Woodley were there to promote their participation in PBS’ documentary programming, Leslie Odom Jr. was there to discuss Purlie Victorious coming to PBS’ Great Performances, and recent Oscar nominee Andrea Riesborough was joined via Zoom by her Alice & Jack co-star Dohmnall Gleeson. And in the day’s final panel, Gershwin Prize for Popular Song honoree Bernie Taupin may not have been joined by his co-honoree Elton John, but we did have Elton’s friend Charlie Puth, who will perform as part of the ceremony and concluded PBS’ day with an intimate five-song concert for assembled journalists and guests.
But what’s different about PBS day is the feeling that everyone is there to support something bigger than themselves or the corporations they work for. And it shows in the kind of questions they get: given their programs’ investment in the power of the arts or the importance of our oceans, journalists largely steered clear of asking them about their commercial projects, and even resisted finding a way to get Woodley to talk about the importance of vaccines (IYKYK). There’s this understanding during PBS days that even though they’re using the power of celebrity to bring more attention to their programs, they’re not celebrities in the same way they would be if they were there supporting commercial projects. And there’s no question that the shift in context creates a much more relaxed posture from those celebrities: journalists might still ask questions about their careers, but it’s (almost) always in relation to their choice to participate in public television programming, and that’s often a personal rather than professional decision which humanizes them in the process.
Puth—who we’re pretty sure is at 32 the youngest person to headline a PBS evening performance (although they had Corbin Bleu last year, who was 33 at the time)—notably spent much of his time onstage trying to downplay his celebrity. Unlike some of the others, he wasn’t there to promote his involvement in a documentary project: he’s just one of the celebrity guests for the Gershwin ceremony. But when I asked him about his use of TikTok and making music at a time when the idea of a “popular song” is a moving target, he specifically emphasized that he doesn’t see his use of TikTok as a matter of self-promotion; instead, he “make[s] these TikTok videos to kind of put my hand out to all the other mes when I was 15 years old, saying that, like, you don't necessarily need a multimillion dollar recording studio to make a record these days.” And when his bio read aloud before the night’s performance similarly cited his presence on TikTok, he told the same story again, wanting people to understand that what some might perceive as self-branding has—in his mind—a connection to the work PBS was doing that was central to the themes of the day.
As I noted last week, it’s possible for celebrities to sell you on their commercial TV projects as affirming, but it’s an uphill battle. When Hudson first appeared, she talked about how her show is about creating a “happy place,” but that’s just marketing talk, not an actual strategy for bettering society’s collective mental health. And as she posed for selfies and then apparently sang on demand, I was struck by how the context of the appearance made me so cynical about all of it, perhaps unfairly so. Maybe I should be more open to the idea that celebrities can make genuine connections with journalists while being paraded out to promote their TV shows…although as I type that out I’m just really struggling to decenter my cynicism.
But that’s the thing about Press Tour: for every cynic, there’s someone who is thrilled by the proximity to celebrities, and covetous of the network swag that makes its way to our tables between sessions. PBS day is an island in the sea of capitalism where the stars and the swag are all in service of something bigger than commercial success, but there’s lots of reasons for journalists to embrace those same dimensions regardless of context for the sake of their own jobs. While some outlets like NPR notably ban journalists from accepting any type of gift, and some journalists may care too much about swag and other perks of the job, it’s another reminder of the diverse dynamic of the ballroom. To claim that anyone is violating principles of journalistic integrity or objectivity would imply that a shared standard for those principles exist in the room, and that’s simply untrue.
And so while I wouldn’t be comfortable treating Jennifer Hudson as a human jukebox, I also know that’s going to be a great story for whoever tells it, and that story is also absolutely what Warner Bros. wanted to generate when they gave her that megaphone and sent her into a tent of journalists finishing up lunch. And that’s just the nature of the beast of this event.
Episodic Observations
Alice & Jack is PBS’ one scripted series that PBS paneled, and I watched all six episodes, and I wish I could say that the panel made that experience more affirming. But I felt writer Victor Levin’s answers showed very limited engagement with the dynamics of the story, and while the actors were strong I had some misgivings narratively that were compounded by how Levin spoke about it. Curious how others are feeling about it in the U.K., where it’s now been released.
I didn’t have a lot to take away from most of the set visits during Warner Bros. Studio Day, given I didn’t watch the first three shows—Night Court, Young Sheldon, and Bob Hearts Abishola—that we visited, but it’s always fun to see sets, and I did have more to take away from our trip to the Abbott Elementary set. I’ll have more to say about that in the footnotes of LaToya’s review of this week’s episode for paying subscribers.
I’m a bit surprised that Puth didn’t get a question about his In Memoriam performance at the Emmys, but Taupin was definitely the draw for the Gen X and Boomer critics in the room, so that tracks. For the record, his performance was “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me,” “Something About The Way You Look Tonight,” and then “Attention,” “We Don’t Talk Anymore,” and “See You Again.”
PBS’ The Express Day with Dulé Hill brought a featured artist from one of the episodes, Black banjo player Amythyst Kiah, who happened to be on a panel the day after her collaborator Rhiannon Giddens was featured on Beyoncé’s new country single, “Texas Hold ‘Em.” And when I asked a question about how she felt about her own mission to educate people on the ties between African Americans and country/bluegrass music being brought to light in this way, I unknowingly broke the news about Renaissance Act II to both Kish and Hill, which was a fun moment in the ballroom as we realized they weren’t as online as the journalists were.
I really appreciate you thinking about this stuff and sharing it. Fame is weird! The way we engage with people we decide are "famous" is really fascinating. I love the way you're articulating how so much of the way we "know" famous people is just through their jobs, and that's such a specific (and incomplete picture).
I believe that it is possible to develop meaningful and even personal relationships through such a dynamic, but that isn't really the point of said dynamics, so it seems both unlikely and a little awkward. If someone genuinely likes you, but is only engaging with you due to their work, that's a multiple relationship at best? It's messy, and it can be very hard to tell if it's genuine. This can happen with artists/famous people and the journalists that cover their work, it could occur between a therapist and a client, or a coach and a player, or a teacher and a student, or on and on. Super interesting and messy and potentially weird or exploitive or uncomfortable. I think part of the issue is one of ethics, but another is the power dynamics at play (which is why it's also an ethical thing).
There's also the whole modern take on parasocial relationship that's worth exploring. They've existed since forever, but I feel like social media and our current culture have really foregrounded them. The way that people are "brands" now is really fascinating and complicated. Man, fuck capitalism.