Bill Marx Blog -- A New Home

This turns out to have been but a temporary home -- my permanent berth is now at billmarx.com

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Where to Send Complaints to WBUR

People continue to ask me where they should send complains about the end of arts reviews and criticism on WBUR, on broadcast and online. Besides Paul LaCamera and Sam Fleming, letters should go to members of the WBUR Group Executive Council, an advisory group to the station...here are the addresses of two members:

Peter Fiedler

VP, Administrative Services

Boston University

Office of the Executive Vice President

One Sherborn Street

Boston, MA 02215

Stephen Elman

Secretary of the WBUR Group Executive Council

48 Leamington Rd

Brighton, MA 02135-4016

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Pointing Away -- To Where?

Here is my last column for WBUR Arts -- figured I will put it up here. I will have updates soon about where I will be in the future. Meanwhile, anyone who would like to host Billmarx.com, send me a message...

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Pointing Away

WBUR is curtailing arts reviews online and on broadcast, so I will be leaving the station after 25 years at the end of August. That also means that the arts magazine, which I edit, will not continue in its current form. New online reviews will appear on the page through the last week of July. But this will be the final newsletter and weekly column.

The elimination of reviews on WBUR, as well as the cuts in column inches for criticism in the city's major newspapers and magazines, is symptomatic of a larger crisis. There's more arts activity in Boston than ever before, with politicians lauding the arts as crucial for the city's quality of life, arts advocates citing studies that suggest cultural tourism will be an increasingly vital part of Boston's economic survival in the future. Yet the praise of the arts has led to a baffling paradox -- there is less -- not more -- meaningful coverage of culture in the city's media. Mainstream media refuses to treat the arts with the same depth and passion as they do politics and sports.

Why? It is partly because editors confuse support for the arts with marketing. At its rare best, personality-fixated features provide information. Most of the time, celebrity-driven puffery and lightly disguised publicity releases encourage the downward spiral in writing about the arts. The irony is that arts organizations are starting to use the web to generate content that is superior to the happy talk features. By posting podcasts and online stories, arts organizations are getting the word out about themselves more effectively, marketing to targeted, niche audiences. Within a decade, the inane blunderbuss of arts hype and gossip in newspapers and on radio will garner more yawns than advertising dollars.

Five and a half years ago, WBUR supported the creation of an online magazine that, by integrating traditional journalism with innovative online technologies, put the station on the cutting edge of arts coverage. I am grateful for the opportunity to create and edit an award-winning product made up of the digital blood, sweat, and tears of writers, designers, and producers whose commentaries, reviews, and multimedia features took the criticism of culture seriously. WBUR's decision to end original online arts coverage and focus on arts news and features tailored for broadcast runs counter to the strategy of most major news outlets, from NPR to the "New York Times" and the BBC, which are embracing the web's tremendous potential for interactivity and community via web-exclusive content, blogs, stories, reviews, and podcasts. WBUR is lurching backwards into the future-- I wish it luck

If arts organizations will be able to sell themselves online, why should the media carry cultural coverage at all? American democracy depends on free dialogue, a passionate exchange of differing views. The country's arts culture, if it is to be about ideas rather than celebrity and consumption, needs independent, honest criticism that passionately asserts standards of excellence and tackles significant issues. The community of readers and listeners that loyally followed (and argued with the views) in the magazine and my broadcast reviews proves there is an appetite for provocative talk about the arts.

I am exploring journalistic alternatives, confident I will find a place that will let me stay true to a principle that has guided me through 25 years of reviewing theater and covering the arts for WBUR. The old media giant Jonathan Swift thundered it, and it is more pertinent today than ever -- "Use the point of your pen, not the feather." It was a pleasure and a privilege to make my points heard.

Hello

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