Results tagged “evening standard” from Slipped disc

The first victim of the next Conservative government was sacrificed in this morning's Times. Liz Forgan, chair of the Arts Council, was reported to have vetoed Veronica Wadley as the Mayor of London's arts chief, on the grounds that her nomination was motivated by political preference rather than cultural commitment.

Come again? Every such appointment, including Lefty Forgan's is overtly political and her own head is now on the line. The next Government will not forgive her bias and she will be gone from the Arts Council within months, to be followed in all likelihood by the Arts Council itself.

For what it's worth, and I know her better than most, Veronica Wadley was more committed to the arts as editor of the Evening Standard, 2002-9, than any boss of any other paper with the possible exception of the Guardian. As her Assistant Editor, I had a free hand to campaign on all arts issues so long as the paper stood four-square behind the expansion and elevation of London's arts. Her commitment can be vouched for by the heads of most major arts institutions in the city.

It is unfortunate that Liz neglected to mention her personal animus against Veronica - she hates the newspapers she worked for, and has often told me so - but I cannot deny her a shaft of sympathy since this row, now bubbling over the British press, was not of her making.

It seems she was dropped into it by Ben Bradshaw, the inept Culture Secretary, who is driving an anti-BBC agenda in the last months of a dying government. Bradshaw knows he is not long for this world. But he doesn't want to die alone, so he has dragged Liz down first.

As for Veronica's appointment, it is still in the gift of the Mayor of London. If the present government won't ratify it, the next one will.

The London Evening Standard, which I served as Assistant Editor from March 2002 until stepping down in May this year, will become a giveaway paper from next week.

The paper was selling 440,000 copies daily when I joined and about half as many when it was sold at the end of last year - after a battle with two free newspapers - to a Russian investor, Alexander Lebedev. The full-price sale in August 2009 was down to 107,000, according to the Financial Times, indicating that the new ownership and editorship have lost about two in every five readers. That would appear to be a reason for abandoning the cover price and giving the paper away for free.  

I do not wish to argue the merits of that decision, except to express a hope that the paper will survive as a quality product. I like and admire many of the people who work for it and hope they can continue to flourish.

My chief concern is what will become of the arts - not so much how they are covered in the Standard as how they are received.

The public does not, on the whole, value unsolicited opinion - which is to say, opinion for which it does not pay in some way. And the arts industry does not turn to freesheets for response, quotation and stimulation. In the decade or so of Metro's existence, its arts pages have had no discernible impact either on public debate or on box-office activity.

A review in a free newspaper, even by a recognised writer, carries about as much weight as a plug on Amazon. Arts in the free Standard are threatened with creeping devaluation. Much as I hope to be proved wrong, I fear that the erosion of value perception will be irresistible.

Sharp-eyed readers of the arts pages will have spotted that the Daily Telegraph has succumbed to the temptation of appending stars to its arts reviews. It is the last of the upmarket British dailies to fall in line with this simplistic trend.

One of my first acts in March 2002 as Assistant Editor of the Evening Standard was to abolish review stars, except on recorded products that could be quantifiably measured by repeated sampling.

The argument I put to my editor and colleagues was that if we were employing the best and most readable team of critics in the business, it made no sense to encourage the reader to skip from headline to star line, omitting the subtlties of our review. My argument held sway so long as I wielded executive authority at the paper.

Of all the devices that devalue the function of criticism, the bar of stars is among the most pernicious. It suggests that artistic creation can be ticked off like a school essay and subjected to a set of SATs, in which the individual, expert guidance of teachers and examiners is set aside for the one-rule-fits-all solution of 21st century politicians.

I understand full well the busy lives that most readers lead and their need at a weekends to make a quick judgement on which show to see without having to wade through all the guff that comes with a multi-section paper.

Nevertheless, as critics we have the duty to protect art from snap judgements. Judgements of this kind allow art to be easily branded as 'degenerate' or 'anti-people' or 'anti-art' - and you know where those labels come from.

I am sorry to see the Telegraph fall prey to the dumbed-down times and I hope serious papers elsewhere will continue to resist. It is not just critics that are diminished by these shortcuts - it is journalism itself.

Or am I wrong? Your views, please.