Was 'Variety' Paid Off to Kill a Bad Movie Review?

Gawker’s John Cook investigates Variety’s decision to spike a bad review of “Iron Cross,” shortly shortly after the paper booked $400,000 in ads to launch an Oscar campaign for the film.

Cook got his hands on this rather incriminating email from Iron Cross director Joshua Newton:

Robert Koehler is in fact not a staff writer for Variety and his views on the film are not shared by anyone else at that publication. One of the top staff journalists had been assigned to do a review after the Oscars campaign, but Koehler took it upon himself to review the film first and managed to sneak it into the publication.

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