Arts journalism has always suffered from a perception that arts news isn't real news. Now The Dallas Morning News and its owner, A.H. Belo Corp., give cultural journalism a fresh black eye with what Morning News editor Bob Mong is calling "business/news integration," a.k.a. what most sentient journalists would recognize immediately as a fatal, self-inflicted rupture in the wall between editorial and advertising.

In an interview, Bob Mong, the editor of The Morning News, stressed that no other parts of the paper would report to people outside the newsroom, though advertising managers had been assigned to work with several other areas, like health, education, travel and real estate. Asked if there were plans to apply the structure in sports and entertainment to other parts of the paper, he said, "not at this time."

In the Sports and Entertainment segments, the senior news editors will report directly to the GM while retaining a strong reporting relationship to the editor and managing editor. These collaborations will bring new products that consumers want to the market more rapidly. We are proceeding knowing and trusting each other's distinct roles and responsibilities in the same way our News leadership and our Publisher have worked collaboratively for years.

There it is on JournalismJobs.com, an actual ad with the headline "Seeking Arts Journalist." The Santa Fe New Mexican wants you -- or someone like you, anyway:

Come to Santa Fe and cover one of the great arts communities in the country. Write for award-winning, financially strong Pasatiempo, the weekly magazine of The Santa Fe New Mexican. Our commitment to arts coverage is so deep that we assign nine staffers to Pasatiempo and give readers up to 120 pages a week of local arts news.

Like many of these for whom my headline has any personal meaning, I tend to put poll votes off. Want to mull the options over. Luckily, this was a slack workday for me, so this afternoon I had time to go back to http://najp.org/summit/watch/competition/ and look the competitors over again, and for me it's no contest. As I've made clear, I'm at NAJP to advocate for the popular arts and for criticism. In this case, it's the latter commitment that dominates. To repeat: criticism is about writing, words, language. Not a priority in Web journalism, especially the "visionary," "futuristic" kind--but, I insist, fundamental. So though I looked at one of Departures' "non-linear community" stories, I got frustrated with its refusal of the explicit within half a dozen clicks and moved on. Flyp I've been examining in some detail since posting my anti-Jim Gaines brief Wednesday. There's now a comments thread connected to it, Gaines-to-Christgau-to-Gaines. As far as I'm concerned, I made some pretty unanswerable points in the first, but Gaines had me in the second, mostly because I failed to navigate his site correctly and hence altogether missed the blog presence there of David Ross, who's been contributing estimable visual arts criticism on a fairly frequent basis. The other arts writers ain't so much, but--all too typically, believe me--the pop music writing is the most amateurish and idea-free. Even Lindsey Schneider, whose Merce Cunningham post is presentable enough, finishes her very elementary take on the Preservation Hall Jazz Band with a rousing quote from a press release. Hard to imagine such nonsense going on at even the online versions of the Time Inc. mags Gaines has edited (and no, I don't feel obliged to make sure). Flavorpill, the only popwise project selected, has its uses, and may even be the liveliest of the five sites prosewise. But criticism is also about ideas, which are less impressive there, and I share the general unease about its business model, which involves "partnering," to use a term in need of unpacking, with artistic enterprises it covers. San Francisco Classic Voice reads like a labor of love, and the articles I read were obviously well-informed if never, in the half dozen examples I got through, scintillating or revelatory. Which brings us to Glasstire, where I found stuff I actually wanted to read even though I'm not a visual arts guy. By this I mean especially this take on the relation between art-making and theory. Though if what you're posting is a glorified listing, this an evolved version of the form. One problem: I tried three times to access the condensed Dave Hickey lecture, and failed. Once it crashed my browser. My fault, maybe. But the frequency of such glitches in the supposedly user-friendly online realm is one of the many reasons I don't believe my skepticism is mere old-fartdom.

BTW, I'm struck that my two favorite sites here both cover regional scenes that boast a real measure of internal coherence and free-floating capital. The Web is supposed to make the world a village blah-blah-blah. But one thing this reminds us is that real villages are geographically coherent entities.  Like words, geography will remain with us. And maybe too the general quality level of online writing makes more sense, and has more credibility, regionally than nationally.

I've been dreading this, so that even after my deadlines were done last Thursday I kept finding other pressing concerns, such as the baseball postseason, which when it involves one of my teams is for me a religious matter (if there's music to cover I bring a radio). But having watched the full four hours of the National Arts Journalism Summit live (or is that "live"?) with NAJP chairman John Rockwell in his office on Friday, October 2, I found myself at a loss for commentary--I had plenty of ideas, but most of them were sour. To sum up my mood, very little presented in these visually hyperactive presentations spoke to the question that most concerns me in arts journalism--quality writing. Of course, some barely dealt with writing at all, but maybe I'll get there in another post.

I liked most of the presenters and learned from many of those I didn't. But I couldn't stand Jim/James R. Gaines, the former Time, Life, and People editor (and sometimes simultaneously publisher, as well as, to quote Wikipedia, "the author of four works of narrative history," which from their looks, if I had to guess--and for what they're paying me here, I do--I'd assume were at least moderately smart) whose Summit-nominated project is the multimedia online magazine Flyp. For me Gaines's money quote was a no-brainer in more ways than one: "The blog is the place of the critic." That's right up there with "The reader doesn't like long sentences." Both mean, "Keep your annoying ideas out of my fiefdom, you pretentious twit."

Still, I checked Flyp out, and clicked all the buttons on "Ted Hope's Excellent Adventure," where I found Rachel Fernandes's text an interesting account of an admirable and even visionary filmmaker. Can't say it stuck with me, however--I had to go back to the site just now to remind myself of what I'd read (and heard, and looked at). And before that I'd read and clicked some of the buttons on a newer arts feature, "Hungry Like a Wolf," text by Drew Stoga. The subject Shakira, who's in the running for the smartest pop star in the world--a funny and caring woman who's devoted enormous energy to UN-associated educational projects. So we got to hear her speak: "Every time you give a child an opportunity you are transforming his life, her life, and giving this child a chance to become a productive member of society."

One reason I love Shakira is that she's capable of better than that kind of do-gooding boilerplate, and believe me (though you don't have to, because in this participatory age you can check it out yourself), hearing her say it didn't improve it an iota. But she beat Drew Stoga, whose narrative included such sentences as "Working with hit-making producers such as Wyclef Jean (of Neptunes fame), Shakira produced a whole new sound that is very electronic, and dance- and club-oriented" and "She has never shied away from an artistic challenge and has always walked--or danced--down her own unique path." Yawn, scream, and repeat.

I dunno. I'm sure not everyone, not even here, will find those sentences as vague and empty as I do, and maybe I'm wrong and Wyclef Jean has had some hits recently (Sean Kingston's "Ice Cream Girl"? some Lyfe Jennings joint that escaped my notice?). But convincing the world of the fatuity of such prose, by example and advocacy, is my battle. So for me, Flyp is the enemy. Right now I'm leaning toward the Texans. But Iurge the electorate to vote for someone, anyone--except Flyp.

Lots of ideas big and small.  For me the four hours flew by, and took my mind of off my beloved Chicago not getting the 2016 Olympics!  I'm sure I'd rather have watched this streaming online by my kitchen window than being there in person.  Except of course, for seeing friends and making new friends.  

How do new questions about the editorial/$ wall evolve as we make a final leap to the Internet? Links appearing next to books used to be a big ethical debate in arts journalism--now it's standard on most sites.

How do you honestly keep in mind the donating foundation (with/out transparency itself?) and how is that being played out differently online than in-print?

The Big Idea in Conclusion on the panel: this is the beginning.

Good practical advice in this segment about how to get funding for your website from venture capitalists and from philanthropic foundations.

Optimism that there will always be arts journalism, and that's great.

But the question is on the "be"--who is getting paid? (And what amount? Is this still a job?)

"Thank television for those few fat years."

Starts to send the bludgeoning message that no, you will be blogging out the goodness of your heart.

Sasha Anawalt more aptly describes this as an "awkward" transition of print-to-online models and acknowledges that there probably won't be one single solution to the next step.

Deborah Marrow (the Getty Foundation) doesn't believe foundations/philanthropy groups will be the savior of arts journalism. Like Anawalt, this is going to be a combination of financial resources ("hybrid models").
 
"Strategic Philanthropy" is a new approach being taken by foundations.

"Army of now-freelance journalist" is terrifying? Exciting? Maybe depends on if you are one?




 

 

What Richard Gingras's story about I.F. Stone must remind us is that while Stone's Xerox machine was important to his impact, ultimately what matters is his mind.  

All I am is a writer. I can't tap dance, take pictures or cause the sky to open up and rain datable men. I appreciate new models who employ people with a variety of skills, just as newspapers once did. The model of each person being expected to do it all is the quickest route to shallow. That's where the online-only PI has gone, after the demise of its staff. Getting people who are good at their jobs takes money. I still don't (quite) see where it's coming from.