BLOGDOGGER enjoys when New York media swoops in and does the usual shallow, condescending, vapid, anonymously sourced thorough, deep and insightful coverage of Hollywood journalism (see: David Carr's column on The Hollywood Reporter, some months ago).

Case in point: This story in the New York Observer, casting trade reporting as the province of Deadline Hollywood Daily, The Hollywood Reporter, Hollywood Life and The Wrap. That's interesting, as none of those sites seeks Hollywood as its audience. THR's much-ballyhooed relaunch was all about finding a mythical business-to-consumer audience.

The Observer article cites Quantcast tracking numbers, as if gaining huge traffic gains means money in the bank. That was true in the Web's early years, when advertising rates were closely tied to online traffic numbers. Yet a quick glance at all the sites mentioned shows most of their advertisements are bought through networks for pennies on the dollar -- "remnant ads," in the parlance of the Web industry.

Live by the pageview, die by the pageview.

What the article seems to posit is that the larger-than-life personalities of Bonnie Fuller, Janice Min, Nikki Finke and Sharon Waxman and their bold websites have sidelined the former market leader, Variety -- which is, writer Hunter Walker almost begrudgingly adds, has been adding paid subscribers and remains solidly profitable.

The Observer notes archly that BLOGDOGGER's master has "largely disappeared from the conversation."

"'In Variety’s case, it’s almost that we don’t even know it exists anymore,' a THR writer bravely told the Observer on the record or not. 'We don’t even care.'" (ORLY, THR? Then why are you constantly following Variety's scoops?)

It's no wonder THR's staff isn't worried about Variety. They're probably wondering who's keeping the lights on after former Conde Nast exec Richard Beckman -- mastermind of that abovementioned B-to-C strategy -- was shoved aside in July, just one month after trade veteran (and Finke smear victim) Lynne Segall returned to her former home as publisher.

Turns out there's not all that much gold at the end of the consumer rainbow for weekly magazines with minuscule paid circulation. (Prometheus learned this at AdWeek, firing its controversial new editor and reverting to a back-to-trade-basics approach.) After all, without those big consumer dollars, how is THR's owner going to afford all those big-ticket editorial hires?

That's probably enough for everyone at THR to be worried about.

Remember this one? Posted Feb. 2? Take special note of the gleeful tone ...

Aaaaand posted today with gritted teeth:

Next time one of those annoying SPECIAL OFFER cards drops from your magazine to the bathroom floor, may it remind you how easy most offers are to turn down.

It's like that in Hollywood, too, where producers/directors/studios routinely present unsolicited offers to actors for films that those actors may have NO interest in making -- or even considering. (What's more, "offer" stories are known to be planted by interested parties looking to provoke negotiations or scare off rivals.)

In any case, they're to be used only in the rarest convergence of circumstances. Variety occasionally writes an "offer" or "early talks" story, but only when all the ingredients point to a better-than-average chance of that deal closing. It's not something to be done cavalierly.

Unless you're the 8-year-old movie fansite Twitchfilm, which has recently redoubled its dabbling in casting and dealmaking scoops, including a Nov. 11 post that Colin Firth had been offered the villain role in OLDBOY. The Oscar winner passed, of course, which Twitch also reported on Dec. 8. Exclusively!

Nothing new here. On Oct. 23, Twitch ran a post that Gary Oldman had been offered a part in Warner Bros.' remake of AKIRA. That held up until a Nov. 22 post, which stated that the "Dark Knight" thesp didn't bite, and  that the studio was taking Oldman's leftovers to Ken Wantanabe. No word on the status of the consolation deal ... yet.

To his credit, Twitch founder Todd Brown (who authored all posts linked here) did cover his butt by wrapping up his Wantanabe post with this disclaimer: As was the case with Oldman this is still just at the offer stage so nothing is definite but it's a good choice should it work out.

(Olivia Wilde's dinner date with us tonight is also just in the offer stage, but if it works out, WOWZERS would that be a GREAT choice!)           

What  Brown failed to cover very well was his source, who is in all likelihood the same person who told him that Garrett Hedlund (posted Nov. 3) and Kristen Stewart (Nov. 15) had also been tendered offers for AKIRA (As our sister blog SHOWBLITZ reported, Hedlund got into talks with Warners about a deal that's looking on track to make; Stewart is still iffy).

Throw in an offer for Helena Bonham-Carter (a side note in the Oldman story) and that's a whopping FIVE offers, all for the same movie -- only one of which turned into truth so far.

Add the Firth 180-degree turn and we're talking about Twitch batting 1-for-6 for the months of October and November.

In terms of what's really fit-to-post news, those offers we can all refuse.

AOL and The Huffington Post wanted to do something different to promote YOUNG ADULT as an awards contender in Hollywood last week. Points for trying: Invites to the event were forwarded to BLOGDOGGERs inboxes just hours before a 5:30 screening at the Aero in Santa Monica that was to be followed by a cocktail reception at Ariana Huffington's home. Like, her actual house. That she lives in, some of the time. Probably.

Despite that the extremely late notice surely meant BLOGDOGGER was buried deep on the event's D-list, we gave this one some serious consideration.

A couple of things gave us cold feet:

Problem No. 1.: Getting to Santa Monica for a 5:30 screening might as well be called
MISSION:IMPOSSIBLE 5 -- BETTER GET A HELICOPTER. It's pretty much a dealbreaker.

Problem No. 2.: The following, which was excerpted from a description of what we'd be getting into:

"We’ve programmed a unique combination of online and offline components with the screening/reception (intended to engage industry influencers in conversation around the film to drive academy consideration) as well as  2 branded blogs and 2 video blogs with content related to the film to be posted on The Huffington Post and Moviefone, with the intent of engaging  AOL’s audience of influencers in conversations around the film to drive box office.

(... deep breath aaaand ...)

"We’re uniquely positioned to create an exclusive offline event with VIP industry influencers designed to drive interest, consideration and conversations around a specific film - and extend those conversations online to an influential audience on The Huffington Post and Moviefone....and to those influencer's social media platforms/audiences with the sharing of that content."

Blogdogger didn't go, choosing to nurse a newly created headache instead.

Take a good read of this, copied and pasted from Deadline awards columnist Pete Hammond's body of work (bolding is ours):

One of the last pieces of this year’s increasingly hot Best Actress race puzzle was answered this week  as The Weinstein Company unveiled Meryl Streep’s The Iron Lady at a very exclusive elite media screening Tuesday night at the Warner Bros Screening Room in New York and Thursday morning for a handful of journalists at the 10-seat Weinstein Co. screening room at their new offices in Beverly Hills. Deadline was represented on both coasts.

BLOGDOGGER couldn't have said it better than Hitfix's Kris Tapley in this tweet:

@kristapley Calling something "a very exclusive elite media screening" is probably, no, definitely the douchiest thing you can call just about ANYTHING.

Somebody else at Deadline must've thought so, too -- since the words very and elite were soon quietly excised from the post, which now reads:

One of the last pieces of this year’s increasingly hot Best Actress race puzzle was answered this week  as The Weinstein Company unveiled Meryl Streep’s The Iron Lady at an exclusive media screening Tuesday night at the Warner Bros Screening Room in New York and Thursday morning for a handful of journalists at the 10-seat Weinstein Co. screening room at their new offices in Beverly Hills. Deadline was represented on both coasts.

This is kind of an innocent and harmless bumble, but it's funny all the same: The Hollywood Reporter put up a post today -- without any apparent irony -- saying Elmo wouldn't be in THE MUPPETS.

The lede:

Fans of Elmo might be let down to learn that the character does not appear in Disney's Nov. 23 reboot The Muppets.

Now, anyone over the age of 5 should know that Elmo is not a Muppet -- he's a Sesame Street character, and though they share creative ancestors and a history of occasional crossover, there's no reason to believe the squeaky little red guy would get a part in this movie.

To THR's credit, they said as much deep in the story -- but then ... shouldn't it not be a story?

Nikki Finke will tell anyone who listens that she's not interested in reporting on people's personal lives, which is why BLOGDOGGER found particularly unseemly her spittle-flying rant against Leslie Unger, the Academy's longtime communications director, as she left her post today. BLOGDOGGER won't repeat the allegation here because, frankly, to anyone close enough to that situation to care, it's old news. So by attempting to pile on, Nikki doesn't really pile on; she just drizzles on some hypocricy sauce, speculating that Ric Robertson will be the next to go.

We'll give her credit: At least she makes clear why the sour grapes:

"My lack of fondness for the arrogant and autocratic pairing of Unger and Robertson predates even their demonstrated poor judgment when they conspired to yank Deadline’s press credential to cover last February’s Academy Awards because I posted exclusive spoilers."

Anyone who's worked with the Academy as long as Nikki has should know that breaking their longstanding rules come with real consequences; even the über-neutral Associated Press had its credentials yanked one recent season for an embargo break that was nothing more than an honest-to-goodness human error. So who demonstrated poor judgment here? The person who posted telecast spoilers, that's who.

What's more, while Deadline reporter Mike Fleming's credential was indeed revoked, Pete Hammond was still allowed to attend the ceremony, so the Academy's punishment wasn hardly a punishment at all. If the AP -- or any other outlet, for that matter -- had engaged in such shenanigans, you can bet they'd be much deeper in the doghouse than that.