LA Weekly Drops Music Critic: Alan Rich, among the most highly regarded music critics in the U.S., has been let go from LA Weekly. The newspaper, which will discontinue regular classical music coverage, is among the 16 outlets owned by Village Voice Media, which earlier this month “laid off” the staff film and dance critics from its flagship, The Village Voice.
The end of the critic? There was a time when they were our arbiters of culture. Those days are gone. [...]
As a flood of stories in recent weeks has shown, those days are going, going, gone. Critics today are viewed as cultural dinosaurs on the verge of extinction. Most of the attention lately has focused on the demise of film critics. The Salt Lake Tribune's Sean P. Means actually posted a list Wednesday of film critics, now totaling 28, who have lost or decided to leave their jobs in the last two years, including such notables as Newsweek's David Ansen, the New York Daily News' Jack Mathews and the Chicago Tribune's Michael Wilmington.
Critics are being downsized all over the place, whether it's in classical music, dance, theater or other areas in the arts. While economics are clearly at work here -- seeing their business model crumble, many newspapers simply have decided they can't afford a full range of critics anymore -- it seems clear that we're in an age with a very different approach to the role of criticism.
Obviously the Internet has played a big role in this shift.
