News Corp is considering denying coverage of films starring artists who refuse to give interviews to its outlets as part of an effort to fight back against the power of publicists, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. News Ltd entertainment editor-at-large, Rebekah Devlin, told the Caxtons advertising conference that News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch was drawing up a strategy to deal with this.

Publicists "are very quickly becoming the most powerful people in the world," Devlin said, adding that more and more actors have contracts that say they don't want to do publicity for a film.

Now News Corp is prepared to unite and say to studios "OK, if you don't want the help of the Fox network then let's see how your film goes," the SMH quoted Devlin as saying. It must be noted that News Corp has its own film studio, 20th Century Fox.

Would depriving films of coverage in News Corp outlets be enough to encourage studios to push their stars to talk? Do publicists have too much power, and would such a threat be justified?

Source: Sydney Morning Herald