I can’t recall ever being offered money to review a film on Rotten Tomatoes, and obviously if I had, I would have said no. But I’ve certainly received emails from publicists through the years trying to get me to write positive things about their client’s work, and then hopefully to post those nice things on Rotten Tomatoes. That is a publicist’s job — to publicize their movies and to try to get the most positive coverage for their clients possible.
piece should be less about one company that was allegedly doing some shady stuff, and more a reminder that Rotten Tomatoes scores do not exist in a vacuum, and that users of the site should never take those scores as simple objective truth., not just because they should know who they are trusting to tell them if a film is good or bad, but because reading good criticism expands the experience of going to the movies and enhances our appreciation of cinema.