Last Updated: November 09, 1999
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Coverage
Many newspapers leave readers to assume that a ballet,
opera or art show is good (even when it isn’t) because they don’t critique
them as they do TV, pop music and movies
This story is an unabashed defense of the fine arts critics on your
staff. If you’re at a typical newspaper, chances are you devote a lot more
resources to reviewing pop music and TV than to the fine arts — i.e., theater,
opera, dance, classical music and the visual arts.
At larger papers, fine arts critics are holding their own — for now.
But if the economy slows and resources get tight, does their copy go by
the wayside, particularly at smaller papers?
There are those who contend it’s good business to reach out to fans
of the performing and visual arts. But it takes a special person to do
it — one who is informed about the art form she covers, who can keep fresh
in her approach and who can stay upbeat in view of the overwhelming competition
from the popular arts.
So why should you find people who can talk intelligently about the fine
arts?
Figures from Americans for the Arts, a national advocacy group, show
that the number of non-profit theater, opera, dance and large symphonies
grew fivefold between 1965 and 1995, from 220 such groups to 1,170.
The group’s study on the national economic impact of the arts showed
that the non-profit arts alone are a $37 billion industry — not including
the entertainment for-profit world. That $37 billion supported 1.3 million
jobs.
“It’s far more significant than a lot of people realize,” — and newspapers
aren’t keeping pace, said Bob Lynch, Washington-based president and CEO
of Americans for the Arts.
It’s easy for newspapers to simply write previews and profiles of the
fine arts. Why bother to devote resources to reviewing it?
Because readers crave opinion, said Susan Freudenheim, fine arts editor
at the Los Angeles Times.
“The best critics open the dialogue with the reader,” she said. “Most
sources of information are straightforward. But we want more opinion. That’s
why talk radio and TV roundtables are so popular. Everyone provides profiles
and features and documentary, but very few can provide a knowledgeable
point of view.”
But the quality of criticism is mixed, says Lynch, ranging from being
so cerebral that it alienates typical readers to being so uninformed that
it shakes a paper’s credibility — “A person who did that in sports would
be killed.”
Quality criticism offers the same as quality sports coverage, he says:
“You get a picture of what did happen, you get a factual analysis and you
get some opinion. The audience can digest all that in context.”
Finding the person who can offer insights and description is one of
the toughest jobs that arts and entertainment editors face.
“People may think we’re backwoods,” said Cynthia Walls at the The Clarion
Ledger in Jackson, Miss. “But we’ve got to have someone who can come in
and speak the jargon. They can’t walk into this market and bluff their
way through.”
Debbie Kornmiller, features editor for The Arizona Daily Star in Tucson,
said her paper has had to mold jobs to the expertise available on staff.
“I can't imagine losing one of those critics and being able to find an
exact replacement. We spent more than a year finding a person who could
do classical music and opera. It wasn't an issue of money; it was an issue
of expertise.”
The L.A. Times’ Freudenheim advises mid-sized newspapers to look for
people with arts backgrounds. She got into journalism with her art history
background, when The San Diego Tribune took a “huge risk” to use her as
a free-lance visual arts critic.
“It’s a flaw in the way most editors approach the subject,” Freudenheim
said. “They want the journalist first and worry about the content later.
In the arts, you have to have the content first. It comes down to getting
someone who has some authority.”
Lynch poses an even stronger challenge, saying newspapers are myopic
if they search only for expertise in the traditional arts: “What we need
is people who can describe the new advances — computer art for example,
or the many varieties of ethnic dance, for example. Newspapers need an
even broader array of coverage if they want to capture increasingly diverse
audiences.”
But is there enough space for criticism of admittedly obscure art forms?
In a soon-to-be-released survey of arts and entertainment editors by the
National Arts Journalism Program, editors rarely complained about space,
said Michael Janeway, director of the program at Columbia University.
“The question isn’t space,” Freudenheim agrees. “The question is how
things are played that becomes the fight. The bottom line is that our arts
critics luckily are really strong critics, so if they’re writing well they
garner interest from the readers that you might not have otherwise.
“But there’s an automatic interest in TV, pop music and movies that
doesn’t come to us, so we have to be the tough underlings. If you’re competing
against movies, you almost have to be better than them.”
Constantly getting allotted to inside pages has made some critics feel
like second-class citizens in their newsrooms, said Janeway, who also advocates
against intruding on the critics’ role.
Too many feel pressured “to do interviews and previews, to really not
do criticism. They’re being encouraged to think of themselves as consumer
writers and less as critics,” he said.
That’s the reality at mid-sized papers, said Sue Schroder, the features
editor at The Grand Rapids (Mich.) Press.
“I look for someone who can do more than review. Funding of the arts
is such a big issue, and that person has the sources. If all someone can
do is review, then you’ve created a management problem five or 10 years
down the road if your staff shrinks or the need has shifted.”
Having staffers devoted full-time to criticism “reflects a certain economic
luxury in terms of size of staff,” Schroder adds. “If that’s all you can
ask of them, perhaps they should be free-lancers.”
Full-time critics may feel threatened by more reliance on free-lancers,
but arts and entertainment editors say they’re crucial to provide adequate
coverage.
Plus, free-lancers help keep longtime critics on their toes, says John
Habich, fine arts editor at the Star Tribune in Minneapolis and an occasional
reviewer.
“On our staff, the average critic has been here 15 years or longer.
Using those supplementary free-lancers helps keep the paper interesting
and not as predictable to readers. It also helps keep the longtime critic
engaged ... They have other people challenging their decisions and helping
them to see things in a fresh light.”
So appreciate your arts critics who can bring a fresh eye to the 15th
annual “Nutcracker Suite” performance or can explain the deep inner meaning
of “Agamemnon” so purely that even a non-theater fan shares their fascination.
Critics have a tough job as they walk the fine line between broadening
your audience and holding the attention of informed readers.
That challenge is confronted head on by Minneapolis’ Habich.
“The title of my autobiography is going to be ‘Culture Pimp.’ My job
is to convince people who don’t have enough time and aren’t interested,
to read about fine arts. I could take the attitude that what I do is only
for the elite person who already cares about this. But then I’ll face the
same problems that already face most symphony orchestras.”
Holland is the editor and bureau chief of Booth Newspapers. She is
based in Lansing, Mich.
