News about a performer now arrives from the performer, frequently before any publication has it. The shift removed an intermediary that had shaped such announcements for a century.
The intermediary used to be unavoidable
Reaching an audience once required a publication willing to carry the story, and that publication decided the framing, the headline and the accompanying image.
Exclusives were traded for favourable treatment, which gave outlets leverage and made relationships with journalists a professional asset.
A performer with a direct channel to a large audience no longer needs that permission, and the leverage moved accordingly.
Timing is the actual benefit
Control over the moment matters more than control over the words. An announcement can be made when it suits a release schedule or when a rumour needs stopping.
It also allows pre-emption. A performer expecting an unfavourable story can publish their own account first, which sets the terms everyone else responds to.
Coverage still follows, but it follows a statement that already exists rather than generating the first version of events.
Publicists did not disappear
The work shifted from placing stories to deciding what is said, when, and in what register, which is a different job with the same objective.
Drafting a post that will be read by millions and quoted permanently requires more care than a press release, not less, because it cannot be corrected quietly.
Crisis work grew for the same reason, since a direct channel removes the delay in which a poor decision used to be caught.
The removed buffer had a function
An intermediary asked questions, checked claims and occasionally declined to publish something ill-advised.
Without that step, an announcement made in frustration reaches the audience in its original form and is archived by others within seconds.
Deletion is not a remedy, since the deletion is itself a story, and the material persists in the accounts of people who saved it.
Why studios accept the arrangement
A performer's audience is frequently larger and more engaged than that of the outlets a studio could place a story with.
Contracts now specify promotional obligations in terms of posts, timing and content, which formalises what used to be goodwill.
The result is that the most valuable distribution channel for a film may belong to a person the studio has hired rather than to the studio itself.