Critics, know thy audience
THE BIG PICTURE PATRICK GOLDSTEIN
Iwas pondering the sad plight of critics in America the other day when I saw a review in our Calendar section of two new baseball video games. Knowing this was a subject of great interest to my 9-year-old son -- and always eager to demonstrate to him how relevant our newspaper is to his life -- I showed him the review. Its conclusions were clear: One of the games, MLB 2K8, was a dog, so poorly designed and hard to play that our reviewer dubbed it "the Devil Rays of video games," after the perennial last place team from the AL East.
So guess which game my son wants for his birthday?
When I asked him why he wasn't put off by our critic's D grade for the game, my son explained: "My friend Jimmy has it and he really likes it. We played it once and it feels like real baseball, except you're just using buttons to play."
Whether you're talking to a 9-year-old Little Leaguer, a 19-year-old college kid or a 29-year-old music fan, when you ask why he or she no longer relies on critics for entertainment choices, the answer boils down to the same thing: "I trust my friends more than I trust that guy writing the review."
There was a time when critics were our arbiters of culture, the ultimate interpreters of intellectual discourse. When I was growing up, eager to write about the arts, it was just as important to read Pauline Kael, Frank Rich and Lester Bangs as it was to see a Robert Altman film, a David Mamet play or listen to the latest Elvis Costello album. Critics gave art its context, explained its meaning and guided us to new discoveries.
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.
