Start digging more critics’ graves- Part 1
Been brewing on this for a few months so please excuse the fact that the article references below are a little old, inspired by yet another wave of ‘death of journalism articles.’
It’s not only this study claiming that critics are losing out to social networks and music services but also this survey of UK critics bemoaning their own profession.
Let’s admit it- the reason that you see a lot of these columns is because of self-interest. The writers left standing in publications want to defend not just their peers but also their profession and their job. The debate then is whether this is really warranted or not otherwise. One argument against scribes is that the egalitarian nature of the Net levels the playing field and lets the masses storm the gate of opinion, making it more public again. Then again, just because someone has an opinion doesn’t mean that they can express it well or as the old saying goes “Opinions are like assholes- everybody’s got one.”
There IS good reason to worry though as recently (well, relatively recently), the L.A. Times has cut more writers loose, including Chuck Philips (who admittedly had some big problems with sources to a recent story).
In my mind, a good music critic can serve two important purposes: 1) helping you to find out good music and/or 2) helping to think about music and issues around it. Admittedly, there’s much more call for the former than the later and even then, there’s a lot of competition from other sources, mostly online.
And that’s where the big stink happens when professional writers complain about the Net, as for instance in this Guardian article. What they’re worried about is whether blogging will or can (or should) replace print criticism, but maybe this a false set-up. Posting a link to a story or an MP3 file or an embedded music video isn’t the same thing as writing a think piece or a carefully researched article- that doesn’t usually happen in blogs and maybe it’s expecting too much of them to think that they (always) should. Posting info can be a valuable service which you can learn something from- a good music blog can just as well help you find good music. To say that it’s not ‘journalism’ per se is right but that doesn’t take away it’s value as providing a public service.
In the next installment (hopefully soon), we’ll hash through some fallacies about the ‘anyone can write’ argument…
Comments
Yeah, but.
Where this all falls down is where people only want consumer information and don’t care about anything more than how many stars a given piece of product deserves. And since Americans, in their belief in entitled consumption, don’t seem to care about anything more than the next thing they’re going to consume (with the expected decline in the quality of the product), those who *do* think seriously, or in a larger cultural context, about this stuff are frozen out or reduced to blogging. I know of no more eloquent writer than Grant Alden, but if you want to see his best stuff these days, you have to go to his blog. Hell, some of the best writing I’ve done has been on my blog.
Not to mention that those who want to make a serious musical statement—one you might not get right off the bat—are similarly frustrated by the constant churn of listeners’ attention.
Anyone *can’t* write, as I expect you’re about to say, just as not anyone can make photographs (as opposed to take a picture).
Comment by Ed Ward — August 25, 2008 @ 5:25 am
Point well taken but you and Grant are more of an exception than a rule so far with blogging. I think that will change though.
And how dare you steal my line for the follow-up post! (about how not everyone can really ‘write’ per se)
Comment by Jason Gross — August 26, 2008 @ 12:19 pm