Anatomy of The Downfall of a Critic

Cleveland Magazine has the details about how the Cleveland Plain Dealer took longtime music critic Donald Rosenberg off the Cleveland Orchestra beat. Rosenberg is now suing the orchestra and the newspaper, saying that he was unfairly muzzled. The portrait is of a critic who cares deeply about his job and how he covered the orchestra, an orchestra that grew increasingly unhappy with Rosenberg's opinions and punished him in little but meaningful ways, and a newspaper caught in the middle and forced to think about the way it wanted to cover one of America's great cultural institutions. It's compelling reading, and near the end of the piece the orchestra's lawyer betrays some of the rancor, as he talks about Rosenberg's lawsuit:

"The hypocrisy of a music critic challenging the right of other people to respond to his criticism is based upon the arrogance of modern media in general," he says. "That they believe they actually own the First Amendment and it belongs to them. And they believe it's their right. It isn't opinion. It's gospel. Like they carried it down on a tablet from the mountain."

He says the orchestra administration had every right to complain about Rosenberg. He says reading other critics provides the perfect defense to their complaints.

"It wasn't just the people from the Cleveland Orchestra that responded to Don Rosenberg," he says. "Every time the Cleveland Orchestra got a rave review in New York or Chicago or San Francisco or Vienna or London or Paris, it stood there in stark contrast to the often angry and harshly critical reviews of Rosenberg."

Duvin says he doesn't question Rosenberg's free speech, and he can't believe Rosenberg would call the orchestra's free speech into question.

"He has a right to that opinion. But he doesn't have the right for others not to have an opinion on him. And he doesn't have a right to be the sole critic for the hometown paper of the Cleveland Orchestra."