By Barry Johnson
OREGON---The stronger the arts, the more adaptive the culture, the better the democracy, the more productive the economy, the happier we are as individuals. Little did I know two-and-a-half years ago when ArtsWatch first appeared online how quickly things would erode, both here and in the rest of the country. Arts writing for the general public, generally pursued by newspapers and general interest magazines, has continued to contract, almost to the vanishing point. What happens when the “newspaper of record” in a city curtails its arts coverage drastically? The old way isn’t enough. The primary observation I’m talking about: that longer, well-prepared stories (essays, criticism, narratives, news, and their hybrids) for a general audience would disappear completely from smaller cities like Portland, if the drift of the media continued in its current direction. [link]
- You can still find excellent arts writing in speciality publications and blogs (we try to link you to some of it here and on social media), but generally those don’t take the local arts scene into account.
- One recent experiment: The decision of the Chicago Symphony to create an online magazine about its activities with “certified” arts journalists (actually, there’s no such certification) writing and assembling the stories. The site has just started, but my quick read revealed “typical” stories you’d find in the newspaper of 10 or 15 years ago.
- All well and good, you might say. But not to Chris Jones, the Chicago Tribune’s theater critic (and a good one at that). Jones took offense at the characterization of the symphony’s site as “arts journalism,” and went on from there to make a stalwart defense of the practice of arts journalism, newspaper style.
- Now, lots of arts groups have their own websites, and the better-heeled ones generate lots of content of various sorts to keep their patrons happy: blogs and videos and the like.
- A few even publish “magazines” to send to their patrons (the Portland Art Museum’s Portal is a good local example, so is the members magazine that Oregon Shakespeare Festival produces).
- Arts organizations, faced with the old problem of reaching as many people as possible with good, useful information, have to think of new ways to go about it. They create websites with rich content, they tweet and they facebook, they try lots of different things…including hiring real journalists to do some of what real journalists used to do.
- “As any experienced arts journalist will tell you, previews are what arts organizations covet most (whether readers share their enthusiasm is a different matter). Because these stories are written in advance of the artistic endeavor, and because few honest arts journalists are inclined to condemn the artist who has yet to play a note or speak a line, these articles tend to be upbeat. And such well-timed stories can be very effective when it comes to selling tickets.”
- Yes, the house of Arts Journalism is a large one and contains many rooms. An arts journalist may simply pass along new info from a press release of the Chicago Symphony, call it “news,” and call it good. She also might write the stories that Sounds and Stories writes. Or those explanatory institution stories. Or labor over a review/essay, if she thinks of herself as a critic. Do we have to do all of those things to be considered an arts journalist?
