Christmas Eve Criticism & Cash Flows

For some time now I've been wanting to blog about art writing and criticism. My general philosophy of criticism can be summarized as follows:

Artmaking can be an amazing, healing process for virtually anyone to participate in. It's really important and I would recommend it to anyone. In fact, I think there should be more people doing it--engaging in creative work--for the rewards and insights it provides to the maker.

But does that mean I should recommend that other people should spend time viewing someone's creative product? Does that mean your creative product has useful meanings to others outside yourself? Not necessarily.

So.... do I think criticism is necessary to societal functioning? No, not really. The main reason I might have upset about shrinking column-inches or hours-paid for art writing is that it's a big part of how I make a living. Just as auto industry workers are shook up about the Big Three, I get shook up about the increasing tenuousness of text-based media outlets: print is losing to the web, and the web hasn't figured out how to make comparable money on text content yet.

How will art writing be funded into the future? I ask this out of self-interest and out of general curiosity. 

In this vein, I thought the following links might be interesting:

• This week, Paddy Johnson, the force behind popular art blog Art Fag City (one of my faves) set her readers a challenge: to help her raise the $6,000 needed to keep her blog running. She set up a deal with a local nonprofit to issue tax receipts for same. After two days she raised $3,000, half her goal. Johnson has some ads on her website, but evidently not enough at this point to keep going.
• After announcing it was to shut down January 1, cityblog Torontoist received sufficient reader support to convince owner Gothamist to keep going a bit longer--and try to find better ad revenue sources, I presume.
• NOW Weekly recently cut art reviews and book reviews from two each per week to one each per week
• The respected brand the New York Times (print and web) recently reported November ad revenue down 20% compared to last year
• The Washington Post and the Baltimore Sun are planning on sharing some content to beat ad revenue drops
• GateHouse, a community newspaper chain in Massachusetts, is suing the New York Times for their improper use of GateHouse links on the NYT-owned Boston.com site.
• The Huffington Post has received criticism of late for outright stealing content from other sites
• Kate Carraway reports in EYE Weekly that "Good magazine fired seven people this week, and New York magazine, which has done right with its approach to the web, had to toss a few staffers. American Media, a sort of tabloidy organization, let go of 12 people." Read the post for more indications of broad media die-off

To me, it's clear from all this that online venues need to figure out revenue big time. Could it be that the future would be dominated by outlets like Akimbo.biz, which is essentially an advertising site that added a blog later in its development? Or will it depend on people working largely for free or on honorarium, a tack that has served a lot of community outlets (like Spacing.ca) well but does not provide the resources for in-depth reportage?

Another thing the industry needs to figure out is what's okay and not on the web. Aggregation of content from diverse streams IS a strength that the web offers, and it's a service many readers are looking for. But there needs to be a sense of fair use, just as there is for fair use in print reproduction. Clearly, based on GateHouse's lawsuit and the HuffPo backlash, this fair use judgment is not yet in large professional play.

On another layoffs tack, I have to say a freelance-dominated media workforce, while good news for freelancers like me, is not necessarily good for news coverage in general. In order to really deliver important, under-wraps information to readers on any topic, there has to be retained reporters who have time to milk sources, learn their field, sift through press releases, and receive regular column-inches from their editors. 

So as the dark of Christmas Eve draws near, I say: Santa, please bring us in the media industry more insights into how we can keep telling important stories to the broader public. I know it's a tall order, but... we've run a hella lotta stories on you this month, so you owe us one.