What one movie reviewer tells us about the critical condition of US newspapers
Posted by Sniffer dog at 5/24/2007 10:09 AM and is filed under Readers,Online subscriptions,Sun-Sentinel,journalists 
So I was just finished banging on about how maybe newspapers have a future if they can nurture and control high calibre, credibly independent content when the Sun-Sentinel demonstrates the newspaper industry's capacity for self-harm.
The paper has decided to take wire copy of film criticism in future rather than their own correspondent and her opinions. I had never read Phoebe Flowers' film reviews before today but flicking through her output she seems readable and suitably opinionated to me. I can't help feeling that this is another "white-flag" retreat from the future for newspapers.
Someone thinks this is a good idea. And, as any good critic knows, in order to criticize you have to first try to understand. So here goes. If I were the Sun Sentinel spokesperson I would say that the expense of having an exclusive film critic is not justified by any demonstrable benefit to sales or advertising, and that for a lower price the paper can include syndicated reviews from critics who have a name nationally, or whose opinions are not exclusive but provide the basic service that the reader requires. This is not an area we can differentiate in a way that attracts readers, so why put resources into it when times are hard and we need to focus our cash where we believe we can appeal to readers. (If anyone from the Sun Sentinel can come up with a neater justification I'm happy to publish it).
It's possible to have some sympathy for this view - newspapers should indeed concentrate resources where they can be better and different. The problem is that this is an area where a newspaper needs to fight rather than retreat. I go back to my Pew Research Center data, published this month in Editor and Publisher. In that data Culture and Arts (29%) is second only to local government (49%) in newspaper topics of most interest. Now it doesn't say locally originated culture and arts, but you can't differentiate if you don't control, so I would have thought that a film critic, a central plank of credible cultural coverage, was worth hanging on to. Maybe ask her to broaden her beat a bit. But not completely lose her film reviews.
The wider problem is how little newspaper executives are coming up with answers to the big question that faces us as newspapers. Ex-readers, the most interesting demographic a newspaper can talk to, are asking one question above all in my (anecdotal, unscientific) experience: "If there is nothing in a newspaper that I can't get online from somewhere else for free then why would I pay for a newspaper?"
It should be the central current question for every senior newspaper executive. And every time we give up on unique, credible, independent content, it becomes a little bit harder to find an answer.
The paper has decided to take wire copy of film criticism in future rather than their own correspondent and her opinions. I had never read Phoebe Flowers' film reviews before today but flicking through her output she seems readable and suitably opinionated to me. I can't help feeling that this is another "white-flag" retreat from the future for newspapers.
Someone thinks this is a good idea. And, as any good critic knows, in order to criticize you have to first try to understand. So here goes. If I were the Sun Sentinel spokesperson I would say that the expense of having an exclusive film critic is not justified by any demonstrable benefit to sales or advertising, and that for a lower price the paper can include syndicated reviews from critics who have a name nationally, or whose opinions are not exclusive but provide the basic service that the reader requires. This is not an area we can differentiate in a way that attracts readers, so why put resources into it when times are hard and we need to focus our cash where we believe we can appeal to readers. (If anyone from the Sun Sentinel can come up with a neater justification I'm happy to publish it).
It's possible to have some sympathy for this view - newspapers should indeed concentrate resources where they can be better and different. The problem is that this is an area where a newspaper needs to fight rather than retreat. I go back to my Pew Research Center data, published this month in Editor and Publisher. In that data Culture and Arts (29%) is second only to local government (49%) in newspaper topics of most interest. Now it doesn't say locally originated culture and arts, but you can't differentiate if you don't control, so I would have thought that a film critic, a central plank of credible cultural coverage, was worth hanging on to. Maybe ask her to broaden her beat a bit. But not completely lose her film reviews.
The wider problem is how little newspaper executives are coming up with answers to the big question that faces us as newspapers. Ex-readers, the most interesting demographic a newspaper can talk to, are asking one question above all in my (anecdotal, unscientific) experience: "If there is nothing in a newspaper that I can't get online from somewhere else for free then why would I pay for a newspaper?"
It should be the central current question for every senior newspaper executive. And every time we give up on unique, credible, independent content, it becomes a little bit harder to find an answer.
In that data Culture and Arts (29%) is second only to local government (49%) in newspaper topics of most interest. Now it doesn't say locally originated culture and arts, but you can't differentiate if you don't control, so I would have thought that a film critic, a central plank of credible cultural coverage, was worth hanging on to. Maybe ask her to broaden her beat a bit. But not completely lose her film reviews.
But I think you're making a huge assumption that film criticism is a central plank of arts and cultural coverage. Reporting on film, along with actual local events, probably constitutes a central plank, but film criticism is not necessarily that.
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