..."Is it curtains for critics?" This article asks whether bloggers are putting the pros out of business.
It ignores several big points:
1. A number of bloggers are also professionals in their field.
2. A lot of critics are amateurs. Total amateurs.
3. The issue is focusing attention on the role of the critic as never before. Until arts blogging came along to show that commentary is both wanted and needed, newspapers could shed critics and arts coverage with equanimity. Perhaps they need us more than they thought.
Present blogger/critic is happy to send own list of credentials to anyone who wants it.
4 comments:
Newspaper reviewing is so poor these days that people don't really have a choice except to turn to blogs for informed comment. Newspapers also don't know how to use blogs properly. Their "in house" bloggers seem to exist for the sole purpose of making their regular writers look competent in comparison ! Thank goodness Tom Service is trying to save the Guardian, at least.
You know, I rather agree with doundou tchil, Jessica. Arts coverage (or maybe I should say classical music coverage) in the broadsheets has become so small in recent years, that the Internet is usually my first source now if I want to know about an event, a n opera production, a new book or a new CD. Your blog is one of my most frequently used resources. In fact, I read your editorial mostly via this blog!
You're quite right about the amateurism of the so-called professionals (actually, a pretty good measure of amateurism is how much someone goes on about being a "professional"). Opera seems to be particularly badly served - perhaps there's some old-fashioned idea that it's just a night out, not real music, so they don't send a real music correspondent? I suppose I shouldn't name names but I did recently read a major broadsheet review of Rosenkavalier by someone who said he'd never been able to see the point of the opera apart from the last 20 minutes. The same guy went to Nono's Prometeo and appeared not to have noticed the music at all. And the sheep-like mauling of Sally Potter's unusually intelligent Carmen by several baffled critics was incompetent as well as nasty. I'm sure some of them didn't really have an opinion and just joined the bandwagon. If I hadn't seen the more detailed, enthusiastic reviews online I might never have seen it.
And why are the critics in the article so obsessed with their own "authority"? That is NOT what they're for. They're there to say something illuminating. A good critic will do so even if he doesn't like the performance, not waste our time with his/her unfunny invective.
I wonder how one becomes a 'professional' critic? What training and certification is needed?
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