{"id":1643,"date":"2013-04-27T17:06:18","date_gmt":"2013-04-28T00:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/?p=1643"},"modified":"2013-04-27T17:10:16","modified_gmt":"2013-04-28T00:10:16","slug":"would-you-call-these-tough-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/2013\/04\/would-you-call-these-tough-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Would YOU call these &#8220;Tough Times&#8221;?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-1645 alignleft\" alt=\"tough times\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/tough-times.jpg\" width=\"276\" height=\"183\" \/>I&#8217;m not, by nature, a pessimist.<\/p>\n<p>So I was struck by the reply of a respected colleague to an e-mail I sent that included the sentence, <strong><em>&#8220;As you well know, these are very tough times for the arts &amp; cultural sector.&#8221;<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>She replied, <strong><em>&#8220;Interesting you say these are tough times. \u00a0I don&#8217;t hear that very much.&#8221;<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Wow. \u00a0Let&#8217;s take a moment to take stock of where we are, shall we? \u00a0I invite\u00a0you, dear ArtsJournal blog readers, to respond: \u00a0Would YOU call these &#8220;tough times&#8221;?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\" data-mce-mark=\"1\">Corporate philanthropy has pretty much evaporated.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\" data-mce-mark=\"1\">Fewer Foundations are making arts &amp; culture a priority against so many other community needs.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\" data-mce-mark=\"1\">Earned revenue is strained as organizations face increasingly tougher challenges in attracting audience attention.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\" data-mce-mark=\"1\">Arts journalism is (nearly) an oxymoron.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\" data-mce-mark=\"1\">Newspaper readership \u2013 and, thus the value of print-based PR \u2013 is on a downward trajectory.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\" data-mce-mark=\"1\">For all the benefits of social media, there is no clear \u201cbest practice\u201d for arts &amp; cultural organizations to attract or sustain audiences in an increasingly on-line world.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\" data-mce-mark=\"1\">Research by TRG Arts (and others) reveals surprisingly painful truths about audience attendance behaviors.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\" data-mce-mark=\"1\">Municipal budgets are still strained \u2013 which means cuts in operating support of publicly owned facilities (and \u2013 as far as I\u2019m aware \u2013 few if any new projects on the horizon.)<\/span><\/li>\n<li>The very principle of public funding of arts &amp; culture seems to groan under the stress of Federal, state and local budgets,<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\">Stakeholders are demanding that non-profit arts &amp; cultural organizations \u201cbe more entrepreneurial\u201d \u2013 which is, too often, code for, \u201cfigure out a way to operate in which you don\u2019t have to keep asking us for money.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So, what do YOU conclude? \u00a0Are these tough times or not?<\/p>\n<p>And if not &#8211; what points would you present in rebuttal?<\/p>\n<p># # #<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m not, by nature, a pessimist. So I was struck by the reply of a respected colleague to an e-mail I sent that included the sentence, &#8220;As you well know, these are very tough times for the arts &amp; cultural sector.&#8221; She replied, &#8220;Interesting you say these are tough times. \u00a0I don&#8217;t hear that very [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1643","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-morale","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}