{"id":91,"date":"2009-04-16T09:04:10","date_gmt":"2009-04-16T09:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp\/2009\/04\/creative_destruction_and_the_c\/"},"modified":"2009-04-16T09:04:10","modified_gmt":"2009-04-16T09:04:10","slug":"creative_destruction_and_the_c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2009\/04\/creative_destruction_and_the_c.html","title":{"rendered":"Creative Destruction And The Critics"},"content":{"rendered":"

A shameless plug for a piece <\/a>on All Things Considered<\/i> 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 an uneasy home in newspapers, and arts coverage was relegated to the “soft” sections. In recent years, the pressure to elevate the consumer guide function over other values of criticism has been intense and damaging. And the narrowing of voices writing about the arts in communities across the country has made for sometimes stilted coverage.<\/p>\n

\"criticsthumbs.jpg\"<\/span><\/a>I think that many of us who have loved newspapers and are lamenting the demise of arts coverage in them are sad more about the loss of what we thought newspaper arts journalism could be rather than the reality of the typical coverage most often practiced in recent decades. The failures of arts journalism are many. Traditional arts journalism did a lousy job at covering dance. It never figured out how to cover community culture very well. It so often pandered to a view of the arts as institutional rather than artist-driven. And it too often pontificated rather than explained. <\/p>\n

Ah, but when it was done well, it was revelatory. Mark Swed taking us inside the head of John Adams to see Doctor Atomic<\/i>. Ada Louise Huxtable explaining how buildings create a sense of history that never was. Bob Christgau cutting through the hype to get to the center. I could go on and on.<\/p>\n

It’s easy to think of the decline of newspaper arts journalism as the death of arts journalism. The familiar argument is that the professional critics do their work there and if the there disappears, so will the journalism. Somebody’s got to pay the critics. But the reason the critics were at newspapers was because that’s the place that supported them. As something else rises to take their place, the critics will go there. <\/p>\n

I’ve recently come to feel that the new thing (whatever that is) won’t have a chance until the old order is disposed of. Newspapers are sucking up all the oxygen in the room, and the startups won’t have room to flourish until newspapers get out of the way. I say this with the greatest respect. I love newspapers, but the business decisions that have dominated in recent years have eroded some important journalistic values (the whole he said\/she said fetish, the uncritical “objectivity” trope, the info-tainment tangent) and the failure to adapt to the expectations of a newly empowered media-savvy audience has been fatal. There isn’t yet an established new business model to support arts journalism, but there won’t be until the old competition has done its dead cat bounce. <\/p>\n

In the past few months new journalism startups have been proliferating. Every day new projects are being announced, and many models are being tried. Even a year ago it was difficult to get the arts community to pay attention to the erosion of traditional arts journalism. Now cultural leaders across the country are talking to one another and trying to imagine what comes next. <\/p>\n

So the wane of traditional arts journalism is actually a creative destruction that will lead to something better. Hopefully much better. Commenters on the NPR arts journalism piece notwithstanding:<\/p>\n

I have an MFA and 30 years behind me actually making art vs.
\ncriticizing it. Artists – whether a composer or a playwright or a
\nfilmmaker have known this for YEARS and have discussed it and made
\nmovies and literature about it even. Good riddance to all of you
\ncritics who have had nice jobs and health insurance policies spewing
\nyour supposed expertise in your easy chair while the art community
\nstruggles to even eat. We don’t need you – we never did.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 an uneasy home in newspapers, […]<\/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-91","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-1t","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":121,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2009\/07\/a_future_for_journalism_about.html","url_meta":{"origin":91,"position":0},"title":"A Future For Journalism About The Arts","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"July 11, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"In the past couple of years, half of all the staff arts journalism jobs in the US have been eliminated. In some cases, newspapers offloading their staff critics have replaced them with freelancers. In some cases, the freelancers have done a better job than the staffers they have replaced. But\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 4 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 4 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2009\/07\/a_future_for_journalism_about.html#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"summitpage.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/summitpage.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":91,"position":1},"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":[]},{"id":165,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2011\/08\/the-classical-music-critic-goes-extinct.html","url_meta":{"origin":91,"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":128,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2009\/09\/artsjournal_turns_ten_years_ol.html","url_meta":{"origin":91,"position":3},"title":"ArtsJournal Turns Ten Years Old","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"September 13, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"This week I gave a talk in San Francisco and I mentioned that Sunday - today - ArtsJournal is ten years old. In web terms, that makes us pretty old. Except, in the room were the editors of at least a couple of other arts sites that are older than\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 10 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 10 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2009\/09\/artsjournal_turns_ten_years_ol.html#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"aj99.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/aj99.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":94,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2009\/04\/theatre_celeb_journalism_and_j.html","url_meta":{"origin":91,"position":4},"title":"Theatre, Celeb Journalism, And Journalism","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"April 22, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Two articles over on the ARTicles blog at the National Arts Journalism Program. First, Laura Collins-Hughes has a take on this year's Pulitzer for theatre and why it's important that the finalists are all women:...women playwrights are vastly underrepresented on our stages. Because \"diversity\" isn't just a buzzword. The Pulitzer\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1222,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2016\/11\/this-weeks-aj-highlights-ominous-orchestra-results-new-arts-journalism-accountable-algorithms.html","url_meta":{"origin":91,"position":5},"title":"This Week’s AJ Highlights: Ominous Orchestra Results? New Arts Journalism? 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An\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Weekly AJ Top Stories"","block_context":{"text":"Weekly AJ Top Stories","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/category\/weekly-aj-top-stories"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/thompson.jpg?fit=500%2C271&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91","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=91"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}