Community building through art
My newspaper column
Earlier blog post here.
Last summer, I was interviewed by Peter Plagens, longtime art critic for Newsweek. His story thesis: the decline of art criticism in mainstream newspapers.
That interview kick-started a series of exchanges with people that I hope results in a better newspaper. We'll see. Meantime, it is a good example of how ideas are birthed and adapted in this new media environment.
We do not have a fulltime art critic, and, to the best of my memory, we haven't had one in the 22 years I've worked here. I explained to Plagens that we did not publish much art criticism because we didn't sense a strong readership demand.
I make a distinction between art criticism -- reviews of art shows -- and art coverage. We publish a monthly column on the visual arts in Go Triad and often write feature stories about artists, galleries and shows.
Honestly, I forgot about the interview until last week, when a reader alerted me that Plagens's story was published in the February issue of "Art in America," a glossy magazine of the art world. My comments -- midway through a long article -- were met with some dismay by Weatherspoon Art Museum officials who wrote to encourage me to add more art coverage to the paper.
As a result, I wrote about the "Art in America" story and response on my blog. Ed Cone, who is a columnist for our Ideas section, then used his own blog to suggest this: "Greensboro has no shortage of people who are passionate about the arts. Why not encourage them to blog? Host their sites at the N&R page? Excerpt the good stuff at a central arts page, and in print?"
Even I know a good idea when I read one. We'd like your help in developing that idea.
A few months ago, in conjunction with the United Arts Council and the Greensboro Convention and Visitors Bureau, the News & Record started a Web site called Scene, which is a guide to arts and entertainment activities in the area. Among other features, the site has a calendar of events, profiles of artists and examples of their work. The Web address is GoTriadScene.com.
We envision it as a place where people can give and get information about the arts. Why not make it a place where everyone can talk about the arts, artists and events with each other? We need you to build out the site, making it a place of robust community discussion.
You can review or comment on a show there. If you have an interest in art criticism but need help navigating the site or just want to talk more about it, contact me. One result, we hope, is that, as Ed suggested, we can take "the good stuff" and reprint it in the paper. And the site isn't limited to visual art. There are opportunities to write about theater, music and dance, too.
What's particularly noteworthy to me is how the various new media have intersected here. A niche magazine article evokes a snail mail letter to the newspaper editor which evokes a blog post to another blog post to a blog discussion to a Web site and, we hope, back to the newspaper.
Both Ed and I have written before about the changing world of news gathering and dissemination. Helping you add your voice to the community conversation isn't necessarily a new role for the newspaper -- we've had letters to the editors for years. Now we want to actively enable the publication of your news and views, and encourage the community-wide discussion.
Let's work together to help it along.
On an unrelated matter, on Thursday or Friday a sticky note may be attached to the front page of your paper. The note will read, in essence, "Post your ad here."
As I mentioned in the space several weeks ago, we are going to begin selling the notes to businesses that want a unique way to get their advertising messages across. The three-inch square notes later this week are a test of the equipment. Simply peel it off and use it as you like.