John: All well and good to say no rules. But we both know that doesn’t hold. Indeed, with each plagiarism or conflict case that comes up, the rules at American newspapers get tighter and more reactionary. My favorite over-reach was the Miami Herald’s bizarre firing of dance critic Octavio Roca a few years ago when it was discovered that he had plagiarized… wait for it… from himself. He had written about an artist a few years earlier somewhere else, then reused some of the descriptions again at the Herald. This is the kind of stupidity that makes people laugh at newspapers. Perhaps there were other issues at play in this case, but the stated reasons were absurd.
\nLikewise the ethics about who buys tickets to performances. The paternalistic ethics-addled Seattle Times insists that its critics should not be compromised by free tickets, and so requires its critics to buy every ticket, resulting sometimes in considerable gymnastics by the critics to get the proper paperwork in order.
\nI agree that junkets can be compromising. But again, if we made clear the biases and then did away with many of these rules, the transparency would be a tonic.
\nTo return to the artist friendship issue, though. I sympathize with the shyness factor. I have felt the same, often. But then, some of the best interviews I have ever had have been when the encounter had turned into more of a conversation than a Q&A. A brief story: I once kidnapped Isaac Stern from the airport here in Seattle when the orchestra wouldn’t grant me a time. I found out his flight, showed up at the gate (I was much younger and brasher then) and told him I was his transportation to his hotel. I led him outside to my little low-riding two-seater sports car (like I said, I was younger), and off we went.
\nI told him who I was, and when we got to his hotel he let me come up to his suite and we spent a terrific afternoon together talking about music and politics (he was interrupted every 20 minutes or so by the phone, as he was managing his empire, and the parts of the phone conversations that I could hear were as fascinating as anything.
\nWhen I finally left about four hours later, I had a very different sense of him than if we had just done a traditional interview. He was old and not playing, shall we say at his peak, but I came to understand a lot more about the man because the encounter was not the usual thing.
\nI’ve written about his elsewhere, but I like a lot the English approach to covering the arts. It’s not unusual at all to see artists and arts administrators weigh in on issues or argue with the critics in print. One doesn’t discount their opinions because they run a theatre or opera house. In America it is very unusual to see artists arguing on the pages of our newspapers.
\nSo you say no rules. That’s what we have on the internet right now. It does make the reader have to take more responsibility for vetting sources, but I think this is a good thing. I think audiences are much more sophisticated about parsing conflicts than they were 25 years ago. Most young people I know, rather than being oblivious to the manipulations of corporate America, seem aware of them and are appropriately skeptical. It doesn’t mean they reject them; just that they’re aware of them.
\nI guess for me it comes down to how it is you develop your aesthetic. I feel that I’m a better music critic because I sat in practice rooms for decades and went to Juilliard and had the experience of performing in lots of different situations. I have a relationship with music that’s very personal and based on intimate association. I’m quite confident in my judgments about certain things. When I talk with pianists I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of the terrain they’re walking. Does it make me a better critic? I’d say not. It’s just the context that drives my opinions. Whether you trust my judgments or not depends on how well I’ve argued my point of view. That is, being a pianist doesn’t give my opinion any greater weight. But it informs that opinion and helps me argue; whether I’m successful or not depends on how I express it.
\nTo circle way back to the topic at hand: knowing or not knowing an artist doesn’t in itself make you a better or lesser critic. But the experience of interacting with the artist can help give insight into work. That may or may not make your writing better; it really does depend on the critic. I think publications ought to have strict rules about disclosing relationships, but once expressed, I don’t believe there’s such a thing as a conflict.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
John: All well and good to say no rules. But we both know that doesn’t hold. Indeed, with each plagiarism or conflict case that comes up, the rules at American newspapers get tighter and more reactionary. My favorite over-reach was the Miami Herald’s bizarre firing of dance critic Octavio Roca a few years ago when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-43","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4ePZm-H","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":348,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2009\/04\/why_dont_arts_organizations_ha-2.html","url_meta":{"origin":43,"position":0},"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":2485,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2021\/08\/make-google-pay-for-content-hmnnn.html","url_meta":{"origin":43,"position":1},"title":"Make Google Pay for Linking to Content? Hmnnn.","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"August 28, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"You might think this is just a journalism issue, but one can draw parallels of paying to read stories to paying for music streaming, which has not proven to \"pay off\" for the vast majority of musicians.","rel":"","context":"In "arts & tech"","block_context":{"text":"arts & tech","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/category\/arts-tech"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/search-engine-76519_1280.jpg?fit=1000%2C548&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/search-engine-76519_1280.jpg?fit=1000%2C548&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/search-engine-76519_1280.jpg?fit=1000%2C548&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/search-engine-76519_1280.jpg?fit=1000%2C548&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":165,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2011\/08\/the-classical-music-critic-goes-extinct.html","url_meta":{"origin":43,"position":2},"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":110,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2009\/06\/of_rocket_science_and_making_m.html","url_meta":{"origin":43,"position":3},"title":"Of Rocket Science And Making Money On Journalism","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"June 3, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Further to yesterday's post on how newspapers ought to expand their definition of news to make money comes this post by Steve Outing, suggesting such a strategy:The way for newspapers to charge for content is not rocket science. They must create new types of high-value, probably niche, content, communities, and\/or\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":32,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2007\/03\/the_great_newspaper_comments_d.html","url_meta":{"origin":43,"position":4},"title":"The Great Newspaper Comments Debate","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"March 29, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Newspapers have long touted how responsive they are to readers. They want to hear from readers. They care what readers think. They try to give readers what they want. How then to interpret these debates over what to do with reader comments on news stories? News organizations realize that 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":909,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2016\/07\/five-highlights-from-last-weeks-aj-ethics-success-and-documentation-edition.html","url_meta":{"origin":43,"position":5},"title":"Five Highlights From Last Week’s AJ: Ethics, Success, And Documentation Edition","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"July 10, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"This week: What ethical responsibilities do funders and funded have to one another?... The gatekeeper problem is still a thing\u00a0in the internet age... What should the measure of success be in opera?... Historians are going to have a real problem documenting today's artists... 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