A threnody: books and arts coverage

Hello

This is good to know that how we would change our style.

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One can heartily agree with your analysis, Ms. Ornish, but disagree with your conclusion.

I'm not a convert to the New Media as Our Salvation Church -- yes, even though I'm blogging away here. As my post indicated, in the swarm of blogs and corporate retail websites and wiki-think video-community networks, I still see no real substitute for what a big-city daily newspaper does (or once did or should be doing) with local arts coverage. I wish there were a healthy substitute, and if someone manages to invent such a thing and make it work on the web -- with a cluster of professional, local critics and reporters in different cultural fields all available at a single site -- I'll sign up.

Good luck with ClassicalTexas, and thanks for writing.

This is exactly why I started my classical music and arts website, ClassicalTexas.com.

I'm an award-winning ex-WRR-FM announcer/interviewer/documentary producer and print arts journalist.

It became clear to me in the late 1990's after radio deregulation and newspaper dumbing-down that fine-arts coverage by traditional media was becoming kaput, and most classical radio stations around the country were sold and had their formats changed.

If anything is going to save arts coverage-- and the arts themselves-- it's got to be New Media/New Technology.

The first thing when I thought when I read Mong's note on page 2 of the Morning News was to wonder what was going to be cut to make room for the expanded international, national, and regional news (the only thing he listed as being an improvement that I was personally excited about). But, as you point out, many of the cuts have already happened.

It's interesting to me that as the DMN ships its good (local) arts writers away (to the Internet, in the case of you and Mr. Bark), the paper is becoming more and more like so many blogs: editing content that is produced elsewhere rather than trying to generate good content itself. When it's done well, that job of selecting worthy pieces is all well and good, but it's not really making anything.

David Kronke is way too kind. But his comments are typical of the gracious and generous guy he is. He's also a terrific writer whom I'm privileged to still call a colleague. Damn, I'm getting soft!

Anyway, Jerome and I now are both trying to make a difference on our respective websites, reporting on and reviewing what's being largely ignored in he pages of the DMN. It can be a solitary existence at times. IS ANYBODY OUT THERE? But it's gratifying at times like these. Jerome nails the DMN's hypocrisy sharply and firmly. And David weighs in with plaudits I don't deserve but certainly will accept from a writer of his caliber.

Glad to see you're keeping this site going, Jerome. But missed you at our Christmas party, you SOB. Warmest regards,

Ed Bark

Thanks for writing, Mr. Kronke, but I need to correct a case of mistaken identity before it becomes hardened into an accepted piece of internet trivia.

I am not portrayed in Elizabeth Wurtzel's "Prozac Nation." I've checked the relevant passages and it's plain to me (and to others who worked at the News at the time) that the character is based on the late Russell Smith. The misidentification is understandable: Russell and I both worked with Ms. Wurtzel, we both lived near her; as a result, we both gave her rides to and from work. Unlike Russell, however, I didn't visit her apartment and commiserate with her about her unusual love life. The misidentification is also understandable, given Ms. Wurtzel's writing: No other character is quite as real, quite as focused, as her own self-obsession.

For anyone who cares, I discussed some of this in my April 12, 1998 review of Ms. Wurtzel's subsequent book, Bitch. But you'll have to buy the full text at the DaMN's archives.

As a former Dallas Times Herald employee who was "invited" by the Morning News, when they shut the DTH down and steamrollered the paper into a parking lot, to apply for a job, then was summarily ignored, as well as a great fan (and good friend, I like to think) of Ed Bark, let me say that the idea of my replacing Ed is as abhorrent to me as I'm sure it is to all his readers.

Ed's one of the Top 5 TV critics in America and therefore irreplaceable; I'm merely a guy on a wire service who costs the DMN nothing. Not that this means anything, but one of my first links on my Daily News TV blog was to Ed's Uncle Barky site.

Jerome and I never met even though we co-existed in Dallas for many years (he was a theater critic when I lived there, opposite my friend Michael Phillips), but we do share one thing in common: We were both vaguely referenced in Elizabeth Wurtzel's "Prozac Nation," which I imagine neither of us are particularly proud.

But, hey: Bigger comics? Cool!

Several studies have shown that white-collar businesses are drawn to cities with a vibrant cultural life, because that's where young, college-educated workers want to live. A daily newspaper with arts coverage is an important part of creating that cultural life.

Even if culture sections don't bring in much direct ad revenue, they indirectly bring in a LOT of advertising -- and readers -- by making the city more attractive to business.