{"id":352,"date":"2009-05-11T06:58:39","date_gmt":"2009-05-11T06:58:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp\/2009\/05\/movie_critics\/"},"modified":"2015-11-02T14:40:04","modified_gmt":"2015-11-02T22:40:04","slug":"movie_critics-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2009\/05\/movie_critics-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Us Against “Them” (That Anti-Expert Thing Again)"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the Weekly Standard<\/i>, John Podhoretz has noted the carnage of movie critics at newspapers. He isn’t weeping<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Movie criticism has been a feature of American newspapers for a\u00a0century, and sadly, one can count the standout critics throughout that\u00a0time on maybe two hands. Many of these jobs were filled by reporters or\u00a0editors who didn’t get another plum assignment and were thrown a bone by a gruff but kindly managing editor. Nothing much good was going to come of that.<\/p>\n

This deprofessionalization is probably the best thing that could have happened to the field. Film criticism requires nothing but an interesting sensibility. The more self-consciously educated one is in the field–by which I mean the more obscure the storehouse of cinematic knowledge a critic has–the less likely it is that one will have anything interesting to say to an ordinary person who isn’t all that interested in the condition of Finnish cinema.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Gee John, I suppose one could say something similar about political pundits. This kind of denigration of expertise and celebration of the wisdom of the “common” man is a familiar trope in some political circles.<\/p>\n

Podhoretz clings to an old and unsophisticated definition of\u00a0expertize. In this view, experts are supposed to be infallible by definition. Since no\u00a0one is infallible, experts are to be inherently distrusted. In this view, experts\u00a0are “them” and there is more natural wisdom in the “us” who don’t\u00a0declare ourselves expert. This is the view that declares that being able to\u00a0have a beer with the President is a more important qualification for\u00a0the job than experience and skill.<\/p>\n

\"siskelandebert.jpg\"First Podhoretz denigrates the role of newspaper movie critic by\u00a0setting up a premise meant to ridicule: “Many of these jobs were filled\u00a0by reporters or\u00a0editors who didn’t get another plum assignment and were thrown a bone\u00a0by a gruff but kindly managing editor. Nothing much good was going to\u00a0come of that.”<\/p>\n

Translation: newspaper movie critics became movie critics not because they knew anything, but because they couldn’t hack it in “real” journalism. For Podhoretz, the movie critic job was a consolation prize for fuck-ups. Nothing much good was going to come of that, indeed.<\/p>\n

So where is the bar set for “good” critics, if indeed there were only a few in the history of newspapers? I could say that there were only three great baseball players in the\u00a020th Century and I’d be right by my own standard, but it doesn’t mean\u00a0anything. Podhoretz, having dismissed the value of professional critics, generously allows that yes, there were a few worthies, just\u00a0 in case someone brings up the likes of Roger Ebert. But no, in the broader Podhoretz view, the disqualifier comes when\u00a0one decides to study something and make a job of it. And guess what? He shows us that newspaper readers agree with him!<\/p>\n

There is a story told about a major American newspaper that was\u00a0among the first to do a huge readership survey in the early 1980s. The\u00a0survey cost several million dollars. And in those days, the editors\u00a0expected to learn that their lead political columnist was the most\u00a0popular in the paper, that people really followed the sports\u00a0columnists, and that the area rose and fell with the opinions on the\u00a0editorial page.<\/p>\n

To their absolute horror, what the editors discovered was this: No\u00a0more than 5 percent of the readers looked at the editorials. The lead\u00a0political columnist was one of the least-read. And the most popular\u00a0item was “Walter Scott’s Personality Parade,” a column of questions and\u00a0answers about celebrities which appeared not in the newspaper itself\u00a0but in Parade<\/i>, the independently published Sunday supplement.<\/p>\n

And nobody, but nobody, knew the names of the critics. This was at a\u00a0time when the paper in question had two movie critics, two theater\u00a0critics, two television critics, two book critics, a dance critic, a\u00a0rock critic, a classical music critic, and an architecture critic. It\u00a0took the paper nearly three decades to get around to it, but the lead\u00a0critics in all but one of these fields have taken buyouts and are not\u00a0being replaced.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So there. Nobody knew the critics, so they should go. Except that that’s stupid. Without knowing the questions and methodology, it’s impossible to argue the specific points, but readership surveys notoriously have failed to measure what people really value in their newspaper. They might not know the byline, but they read the work. They might not specifically buy the paper for city hall coverage, but they notice it when it’s there (and when it’s not).<\/p>\n

The larger issue is this. It’s all well and good to ask an audience what it wants. It’s important to understand the market. But no publication ever became great by following rather than leading. There is an important place for the wisdom of crowds. But there’s also a significant role for those who become experts. You’d think that Podhoretz<\/a>, with his limited, elitist and subsidized audience at the Weekly Standard and Commentary would understand this as much as anyone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the Weekly Standard, John Podhoretz has noted the carnage of movie critics at newspapers. He isn’t weeping. Movie criticism has been a feature of American newspapers for a\u00a0century, and sadly, one can count the standout critics throughout that\u00a0time on maybe two hands. Many of these jobs were filled by reporters or\u00a0editors who didn’t get […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"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":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-352","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4ePZm-5G","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":36,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2006\/12\/john_arts_coverage_then_and_no.html","url_meta":{"origin":352,"position":0},"title":"John: Arts Coverage Then and Now","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"December 19, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Doug: I agree with most everything you say in your last posting (to the annoyance of those, like editors, who value a good dust-up over reasoned dialogue). I do think editors at daily newspapers today prize lively writing and versatile newspaperly skills over expertise in a field of art; they\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":91,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2009\/04\/creative_destruction_and_the_c.html","url_meta":{"origin":352,"position":1},"title":"Creative Destruction And The Critics","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"April 16, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"A shameless plug for a piece on All Things Considered by Laura Sydell on what's happening with arts journalism as newspapers drop arts coverage. As I say in the piece, IMHO what's happening is not the destruction of arts journalism, but the reinvention of it. Arts journalism has often had\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2009\/04\/creative_destruction_and_the_c.html#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"criticsthumbs.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/criticsthumbs.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":348,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2009\/04\/why_dont_arts_organizations_ha-2.html","url_meta":{"origin":352,"position":2},"title":"Why don't arts organizations have critics in residence?","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"April 7, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Lots of arts organizations have blogs on their websites. Most aren't very good, and they're difficult to maintain well. There are many out-of-work critics. And less and less arts coverage in local press. So why not critics-in-residence? Yeah independence. But let's suspend for a moment the idea that criticism's highest\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 14 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 14 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2009\/04\/why_dont_arts_organizations_ha-2.html#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":165,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2011\/08\/the-classical-music-critic-goes-extinct.html","url_meta":{"origin":352,"position":3},"title":"The Classical Music Critic Goes Extinct","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"August 23, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Seems important to note the passing of music criticism as a legitimate job in Canada. John Terauds, for six years staff classical music critic of the Toronto Star, was reassigned this week to the paper\u2019s business section. He was the last full-time classical music critic at a Canadian newspaper. The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "arts journalism"","block_context":{"text":"arts journalism","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/category\/arts-journalism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/eacae9164a65af69f68bb9fe5451.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":41,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2006\/12\/doug_back_in_the_tree_house_fr.html","url_meta":{"origin":352,"position":4},"title":"Doug: Back In The Tree House (Friends and Critics)","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"December 16, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Okay - we're back online. Power has been restored here in Seattle (I understand as many as 1 million people had electrical outages). The tree that met the acquaintance with the back of our house was the most impressive tree in our neighborhood. It was more than 100 years old\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"tree.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/tree3web.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":88,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2009\/04\/atlanta_journal-constitution_o.html","url_meta":{"origin":352,"position":5},"title":"Atlanta Journal-Constitution Offloads Its Arts Critics","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"April 14, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"It's hard to accept the premise that newspapers are worth saving when they cut away the reasons to buy them. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has pretty much declared it's out of the culture coverage business by getting rid of its arts staff, including a few critics who have had national prominence.\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2009\/04\/atlanta_journal-constitution_o.html#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":618,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352\/revisions\/618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}