Last week, I put up a post called Old School versus New Media, which drew quite a few comments. Charles Campbell, who writes for The Tyee here in Vancouver, sent me this article called With newspapers in terminal decline, what future for arts journalism? I wanted to share it with you.
Studies show, however, that arts journalism is not being singled out for inequitable rollbacks. The problem is that the cuts are deepening an already miserable shortage of resources, set against a cultural universe that continues to expand. We are past the tipping point: it has become acceptable to run a paper with just a skeletal culture staff. Specialised writers are giving way to generalists. Culture sections are being tossed overboard (standalone book review sections, in particular, are a dying breed). Article lengths and “news holes” (space for editorial content) are shrinking. All this has eviscerated newspapers’ ability to deliver quality arts coverage, which, as a result, must migrate elsewhere.