At the tail end of what has been a hard year all around for the vaunted Twin Cities alt-weekly, it’s been a particularly rough couple of weeks for arts & culture writers over at City Pages. First, the Assistant A-List Editor* and one of the two staff food writers were laid off; now, it looks like the publication’s well-respected theater critic, one of the few of the old-guard staffers to persevere through the upheavals of the last year, Quinton Skinner’s job is being reduced by half.
Photo of Quinton Skinner courtesy of MinnesotaPlaylist.com
Cutting 50% of Skinner’s sprawling, erudite-but-entertaining theater pieces isn’t just a hit for local arts criticism. It’s a substantial loss for the theater community as well. The alt-weekly covers a lot of area performances, and thoughtfully, on a weekly basis. Between CP’s frequency of publication and sheer word count devoted to the arts in every issue, I’m not sure what other local outlets truly have the wherewithal to step into the breach. To be fair, CP Editor Kevin Hoffman is quoted as emphasizing that they’ll be moving more of their arts coverage online, beefing up their blogs to fill the gap left by recent staff reductions.
Here’s what worries me about this trend and about this cut, in particular: to my mind, Skinner’s pieces are among the best examples of what looks to be a dwindling breed of arts criticism – the beautifully written, tightly crafted long-form critical essay.
I know, I know – these evolutions in taste, medium, and publication style are happening through all kinds of media, and these sorts of changes often prove to be a welcome shake-up of the complacencies of the status quo. It’s just that this kind of considered essay, the lavishly edited sort of piece tailor-made for the pages of magazines and dailies, is especially vulnerable to extinction as “content” migrates online. It’s expensive – in terms of both staff/writer time and money – and this kind of article doesn’t lend itself to the write it-and-post it-now demands of the new media environment.
All this isn’t to say there isn’t good arts journalism on the web. That would be a ridiculously myopic claim. The truth is, lots of fine writing is migrating to the short-form stuff new media craves: blog posts, aggregators, tweets, and other fast-paced, often cleverly structured, many-layered sorts of pieces. In spite of all the bad news of late, with the profusion of online and existing print journalism available, we’ve still got lots of good arts journalism being written in these parts. Hell, mnartists.org is home to alot of it.
But as I hear about round upon round of media cuts (across the board in radio, print, online, TV), it sure feels like the foundation for much of this carefully considered sort of arts criticism – along with those outlets who’ve been home to writers whose work we’ve come to love – is irrevocably crumbling. How can we do anything but mourn for the undeniable diminishing of the outlets who’ve been home to so much fine journalism?
I sure hope that the loss of this kind of rigorous discourse, thoughtfully eloquent critical expression on the arts – as it’s lived in print publication, anyway – is merely a brief (if uncomfortable) intermission in what will turn out to be a newly invigorated landscape for arts coverage. I’m holding tightly to the conviction that there will still be stable homes for worthwhile writing, perhaps with formats and structure that will better suit the new ways we’re all communicating with one another these days, but which find a way to do so without sacrificing too much substance. In the meantime, cross your fingers that these worthy print-veterans will find higher ground until web publishing settles on a viable business model which will allow them to pay their “content providers” enough to live on. I don’t think any of us who work in the field expect a career in arts journalism to be a particularly lucrative path (and we’d all be poorer if writers and editors didn’t offer their skills, often free of charge and against their economic self-interest, to shoestring publications). But it would be awfully nice if journalism could still offer a way for its practitioners to pay the mortgage after all the dust-ups settle.
For now, don’t start crying over the demise of the lavish, long-form theater feature quite yet. I’ve been consistently impressed by the caliber of the writing – the memorable essays, the cheeky writing on the business of theater, the craft of performance – and by the staggering array of voices represented on the new online performance hub, MinnesotaPlaylist.com. In fact, this week you’ll find a wonderfully nuanced, provocative essay on the “state of play” by Quinton Skinner among their offerings.
*Correction (1/7): my original post left the mistaken impression that the A-list editor was let go. To clarify: the person laid off was the Assistant A-List Editor, Ben Palosaari; the A-List editor, Jessica Armbruster, is still very much employed by the alt-weekly. Sorry for the confusion – the perils of blogging in haste, I suppose:)
You could lay the foundations for a pretty substantial arts publication using the corpses of all the local writers who’ve been expunged from the ‘Ges.
I’m just sayin’…
Comment by Michael Fallon — January 5, 2009 @ 10:55 pm
You’re dead right about that. There are scads of skilled writers and editors around here looking for steady work. It’s crazy. And if we could figure out the funding side of things (the perennial “if”, I know), one could pull a killer masthead together for a new arts mag. But how to pay for it? Everyone’s just waiting for a viable business model to shake out, something that allows publishers enough revenue to pay writers actual wages. I hate to say it, but it looks, so far anyway, like the trend is toward freelancers + less pay for writing. I don’t think it’s because publishers are stingy – in fact, I think they’re losing money – I think they just can’t figure out how to extract money from content effectively yet. I think somebody will. But waiting for the problem to get worked out is terrible. I wonder how many talented journalists and critics will simply move on to something else in the interim?
Comment by Susannah Schouweiler — January 5, 2009 @ 11:04 pm
Is there a possibility to do something like public radio and do it for a publication/website/new media deal? It has been something I have been going over in my mind for along time. Every time I hear about MPR raising ten million dollars. I keep thinking it wouldn’t take quite that much overhead and people could get paid. This would also take out any political slant and also all the advertising and instead have a page of sponsors and contributors. I am up for discussing it, just let me know.
Comment by Rich Horton — January 6, 2009 @ 8:06 am
We recently launched more arts coverage in our new Arts Arena Blog at MinnPost.com:
http://www.minnpost.com/artsarena
MinnPost is a non-profit. Don’t have quite the girth of MPR’s budget, but we’re growing. Advertising is picking up. I would humbly suggest becoming a member of MinnPost to help support high quality local arts coverage.
(Disclaimers: I work at MinnPost. Formerly worked at City Pages.)
Comment by Karl Pearson-Cater — January 6, 2009 @ 9:48 am
Thank you for the thoughtful piece, Susannah, which insightfully captures so many of our (arts writers’) concerns, thoughts, and hopes as the year of living carefully, tentatively begins. Since leaving the Star Tribune (yes, I chose to leave), I’ve been deliberating on how to manifest/deploy 20 years of experience in arts journalism and dance criticism in ways that will serve the dance community, continue to challenge me as a writer and still bring in some income. With the change in format and pay cut for arts writers at minnpost.com, short-form writing has entered the mainstream once occupied by the kind of writing–the long form, critical essay Quinton’s so adept at. I’ve been playing with public relations, writing for free in order to foster good will…but after years of being paid for work I love to do, it’s tough going. Yes, we need new business models to make long-form online writing lucrative enough to keep the best writers with years of experience contributing to discourse on the arts. Is there any way to get together funders, corporate sponsors, arts journalists, publishers and editors to break new ground and find a model/paradigm that works?
Comment by Camille LeFevre — January 6, 2009 @ 10:16 am
I think a lot of folks are moonlighting to supplement their incomes, Camille. It’s become a necessity to start looking at other kinds of places that need good copy: B2B mags, trade stuff, PR materials. I’m not even sure it’s such a bad thing that we who freelance in this field are being prompted to diversify our client-base. Still. It’s hard not to mourn the days of beat journalism and the old-school newsroom, with it’s layers of reportage and editing, fact checking, and copyeditor. Seems so luxurious, doesn’t it? But I feel compelled to note that, from my own experience with it, short-form, quick-and-nasty writing’s got its merits, too. It’s fun to do and valuable for breadth and speed of coverage. The pace just takes my breath away. But it’s also an inherently ephemeral form, inclined toward lots of briefs, but not much time for depth. The short form stuff is just an altogether different animal from the evergreen endurance offered by the well-researched, fact-checked, finely edited essay. They’re just aiming at different needs, different audience expectations, and different modes of communication, I think. I’m hoping for some “best of both worlds” scenario to win out–some hybrid vigor from the pairing of the virtues of print depth with the speed and agility of online publishing.
Comment by Susannah Schouweiler — January 6, 2009 @ 3:36 pm
Hey Susannah, thanks for the article. Ben, the Associate A List Editor/Calendar Editor was indeed let go. However, the A List Editor (me) at City Pages pages is still employed full-time.
Take Care,
Jessica Armbruster, City Pages A List Editor
Comment by Jessica Armbruster — January 6, 2009 @ 4:41 pm
Sorry for the miscommunication, Jessica. I’ve made the correction to clarify.
Comment by Susannah Schouweiler — January 6, 2009 @ 6:53 pm
The moonlighting thing for arts journalists has always been around– I have a bunch of fallback things that I slogged away at for years before finally getting decently paid regular work in journalism, first web and then print, and then — whee!– Republican fun on Wall Street vacuumed up (ha!) all the dollars and we’re all freelancing again. . . it’s not better. There is no bright side. But I think MinnPost’s idea of imitating both print and MPR on the web is a good one. It’s just people aren’t used to the idea of paying for this kind of content yet. Maybe if it gets scarce enough people will. Pay, I mean.
Comment by ann klefstad — January 9, 2009 @ 5:53 pm
and o incidentally Skinner’s got a couple of lovely novels out. Now would be the time to buy them, I think.
Comment by ann klefstad — January 9, 2009 @ 5:54 pm
Ah the dia de los muertos has a habit making look for souls.
It sad that only writers write about writers dying in their souls.
But let me say this; there are a few of us painters who read. We to see what the “words” can provide for amplification of the observation of truth. Tragically it does’t sell papers. I read once that Billy H. employed poets and cartoonists to reach out to the common man(women did most of the reading, still do). But it took burning theaters, social masterpieces and great personalities to sell the nickel rags.
It is interesting to see the news on my laptop, with sixth block ads twisting the stories that catch my eye. I think nothing is as new as the old answer in a new wrapper.
But then again what do I know painting on walls on broken down buildings for one dollar? Art goes on in a strange sorta way while all of those who wrote about it seem to not understand. People still open their eyes, ask the driver to stop the bus and look at the painting on the wall. No gallery needed, no guards and best of all no critics.
Perhaps it is a good thing the paper pulpits are crumbling-but mankind being as he is will bring back the critics-if not maybe the coyote will,…..
Comment by Jimmy Longoria — November 7, 2009 @ 4:37 pm