At the movies
Ken Otterbourg, managing editor of the Winston-Salem Journal, wrote a blog post in which he described letting go five people, including the paper's movie reviewer, Mark Burger, who is also a reviewer on the Two Guys named Chris radio show on Rock92. That decision has gotten some blog play, both good and bad.
We don't have a fulltime movie critic and haven't for years. I don't have much concern about it, either, although some on our staff lobby for one every once in a while. We buy several wire services and they provide many, many reviews. Do we benefit markedly by duplicating their efforts with a local reviewer? I doubt it.
The case made by Orlando Sentinel movie critic Roger Moore, a former Winston critic, isn't compelling.
But when a paper loses its critic, a town loses another original voice. Really? Actually, the paper may lose an original voice, but the town doesn't need to. More and more people are using online tools, and more and more voices are being heard. The number of people writing about film will only increase.
In the case of Winston-Salem, a city loses an arts advocate. Mark Burger's job included covering a very lively theater scene, a prestigious drama program at a state school for the arts, a school which also has a film school, plus the The National Black Theatre Festival, a regional Shakespeare Festival, and ongoing efforts to attract film production there. My guess is that the Journal will continue to cover most of those events and stories. And my guess is also that voices will rise up to advocate for the arts, both within the community and the paper.
Movie critics are targeted, too, because the decision makers, publishers and editors, age out of movie-going. And when they do, they figure everybody else has as well, so suddenly TV gets all their attention. Now this is just petulance speaking, if you ask me. I still go to movies, even some of the same ones my teenagers go to. For the record, we don't have a TV critic either.
Ken was faced with cutting a movie critic or a local reporter. One brings a point of view to a topic on which dozens of other opinions are available in the paper, on television and on the Net. The other can produce unique local stories about people and places nearby that no one else is doing. It's not a hard choice.
Comments (5)
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My first thought when I heard this was that y'all should hire Burger. The guy is great, better than the national folks you run most of the time.
But then, if Burger's that good, he should be the one with the national gig.
Posted on November 22, 2006 7:09 PM
I have to say I do think it makes a difference to have a local reviewer - or at least someone who isn't simply a syndicated reviewer.
Reading Glen Baity's reviews in Yes Weekly (http://www.yesweekly.com/main.asp?SectionID=6&TM=80753.06) next to the wire stuff that runs in Go Triad makes something obvious: guys who write syndicated reviews are doing it in the most cookie-cutter, safe, never rock the boat or challenge the reader way possible. Which makes sense - they know it's for mass consumption and that they need to give the most concise and least challenging reading of the film for people who are picking it up to decide whether they're going to see the cartoon penguin movie or James Bond.
The stuff we run now is, mostly, just story synopsis with a line or two on performance. And that's enough for the reviews to be forgettable. But the real shame, I think, is that none of these syndicated guys do what I think columnists (and perhaps expecially music or culture columnists) should do - write with personality. People don't pick up Go Triad to see what Colin Covert of McClatchy Newspapers thinks of a film...but I do know people who will pick up Yes to see what Baity thinks. Because they consider him a person and a personality and they want his take. The faceless (literally and figuratively) wire reviewers don't provide that for readers. Jon Kirby's nightlife columns in Go Triad do - and I think he's been a great contribution for that reason.
Is it worth the cost to inject personality into a publication via a movie reviewer when you have wire stuff you could run? I dunno. I'm not an accountant and I haven't seen the numbers. But I do know that more personality is one of our paper's stated goals.
Posted on November 23, 2006 10:37 PM
Yeah...that should have been "especially."
Fingers jittery from pie...
Posted on November 24, 2006 4:52 PM
OK, Joe, on yours, Michelle's and Dick's recommendations, I'm going to see Casino Royale today. It'll have to be another time before I see Borat and reach the realm of coolness.
Posted on November 25, 2006 8:55 AM
Despite all of the gloom-and-doom talk from folks like Mr Otterburg, newspaper companies remain extremely profitable. The profit margins at many large media companies are around 20 percent; for comparison, they are around 1 percent in the grocery business.
So I have to shake my head when I hear editors try to justify these decisions. The reality is that the corporate decision-makers want bigger profits and bigger dividend checks, so they skimp on quality, figuring that enough people won't notice or care.
Take a look at your local paper (wherever you may live): Is it as good as it was 5 years ago or 10 years ago? Are there as many locally-produced stories (I'm talking about total content. Don't be confused if they've simply shifted those stories to the front page)? Are they doing the same level of investigative work? Are there as many journalist covering your community? In just about every market, the answers are no.
Posted on November 27, 2006 10:41 AM