Douglas McLennan
Doug is the editor of ArtsJournal
HBO Undoes The Rebranding Mistake Of A Generation
Dropping “HBO,” a label linked to award-winning dramas for decades, removed a trusted shortcut and left viewers asking whether the service had changed its...
Republicans Go After Philanthropies For Taxes
The House tax bill increases taxes on philanthropies. It was news to me that philanthropies pay any taxes at all; I always thought nonprofit...
What NEA Cuts Mean To Small Book Publishers
Without the NEA, today’s most treasured literary organizations might not have survived their infancy as far back as the 1960s. Without these endowments, what...
A History Of Free Speech: How Haphazard It Has Been
What repeatedly surprises about the history of free speech is its incurably accidental nature – reforms undertaken for one set of reasons generate unforeseen...
Why We Won’t Get Artificial General Intelligence Any Time Soon
Opinions differ in part because scientists cannot even agree on a way of defining human intelligence, arguing endlessly over the merits and flaws of...
Podcasters Protest Spotify’s Decision To Post How Many Plays They Get
The chief complaint was that some podcasters actually don’t want listeners to know how many people are listening to their podcast, because it might have the...
Can PBS Survive?
This is unusual because it’s coming from so many different places. That was not the case during the first Trump administration. It was not...
This Book Group Has Been Reading The Same Book For 12 Years
“We’re only reading one page at a time,” said Peter Quadrino, founder and organizer of the Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin, TX. Every other...
CNN Will Live-Broadcast Clooney’s Broadway Murrow Play
CNN is planning a live broadcast of the penultimate performance, on June 7 at 7 p.m. Eastern. The performance will be preceded and followed...
Neuroscientists Find Music Can Powerfully Reshape Memory
In other words, positive music increased the likelihood of recalling stories with added positive elements, and negative music increased the likelihood of negative elaborations....
Opera Australia Posts Dismal $10M Deficit
Australia’s largest performing arts company confirmed its Sydney winter season and its much-hyped run of Sunset Boulevard failed to meet box office forecasts but it had...
Harvard Law School Bought A Copy Of The Magna Carta For $27. Turns Out...
British historians were able to verify the document’s true authenticity after an academic stumbled across the item while looking through Harvard Law School’s online...
The Case For Salonen To Return To The LA Philharmonic
In L.A. he has a venue like no other in Disney Hall. The L.A. Phil is an orchestra more flexible than any other, and...
Texas Proposes Law To Punich Bookstores For Selling “Unsafe” Books
Specifically, the bill, HB 1375, authored by state Rep. Nate Schatzline, R-Fort Worth, would hold bookstores legally liable for the "distribution, transmission, or display...
Is It Ethical To Buy Used Books?
Used-book stores or vintage-record shops, where hidden gems lurk like geodes waiting to be split open, play a role, too. Such venues don’t just...
Why We All Need To Study History
When students, and school boards, ask, Why history? What are we supposed to be getting out of this? the best answer is still that...
The Oscars Want To Make Voters See Movies They Vote On. But How Do...
That might seem like an obvious rule for voters of any award: View the works you’re judging. But when I recently spoke with several...
Republican Tax Bill Would Allow President To Kill Non-Profits
Among those amendments, buried on page 380 of the draft, is a section that would enable Trump’s secretary of the Treasury to denounce any...
Broadway’s Back Baby! Box Office Exceeds Pre-Pandemic Take For The First Time
Last week, Broadway grosses for the season-to-date surpassed 2018-2019’s record season-to-date box office for the first time. - The Hollywood Reporter
A Growing Number Of Foreign Musicians Are Canceling Performances In The US
A growing wave of performers — like German pianist Schaghajegh Nosrati and Canadian folk singer Bells Larsen — have canceled shows in the States, either in protest of...
BBC Chief: Disinformation Is A Big Threat
“The future of our cohesive, democratic society feels for the first time in my life at risk. We have so much to be proud...
Argentine President Is Waging War On History And Closing Arts Speaces
In an ongoing attempt to erase victims’ stories of Argentina’s dictatorship under Jorge Rafael Videla, President Javier Milei has started closing art spaces. -...
Why Do All Our Movies Seem To Have The Same Plot?
The formula is particularly repetitive in cinema. As it happens, aspiring screenwriters in 21st-century Hollywood are following a rubric set out in the 4th century...
National Constitution Center Gets Its Biggest Gift Ever
The $15 million donation from billionaire hedge fund manager Kenneth C. Griffin will support the creation of two new galleries focused on America’s founding...
Why America Needs The NEA More (Not Less)
We are in a cultural moment where critical thinking has become synonymous with cynicism. Our government and larger media have spent decades telling us...
