The Death of Opinion (fishbowlNY)

I'm not that interested by the specifics of the subject below, but I was attracted by fishbowl's headline - The Death of Opinion.

I recently put it to someone that maybe the NYT and the IHT really ought to get out of the op-ed business altogether. They nearly fell off their chair.

I wasn't entirely sure I meant it when I said it, but I think this idea could do with some further consideration. By me, for starters.

Anyway, the article for what it's worth....

The Death of Opinion: Newspaper Music Critic Removed From Post for Being Critical

For almost 30 years, Donald Rosenberg has covered the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra, first for The Akron Beacon Journal and, since 1992, The Plain Dealer. Earlier this week, he found out his services would no longer be needed as he was being transferred to an arts and entertainment writer.

The move came a shock and many believe executives at the Plain Dealer gave into pressure from the orchestra community who felt Rosenberg was overly critical of its maestro, Franz Welser-Most. Susan Goldberg, the paper's editor, denied the claims, telling The New York Times, "No outside criticism is going to change our internal decision-making process."
Terrance C. Z. Egger, publisher of the Plain Dealer and also a member of the orchestra's board, could not be reached for comment by the Times.
Zachary Lewis, a 28-year-old former intern of Rosenberg, will handle the symphony beat.
After the jump, the music critic community jumps to Rosenberg's defense.
The Baltimore Sun's music critic Tim Smith took Rosenberg's side, writing:
Don's musical background is as good as it gets, his evaluations reasoned and sensitive. He has covered the Cleveland Orchestra for nearly three decades (including a stint with another area paper), and he's the author of the definitive book about that orchestra. So what did he do wrong? He has questioned, more than once, the sanctity of the Cleveland Orchestra's music director, Franz Welser-Most.
Smith goes on to accuse the Plain Dealer of caving to "pressure from a faction representing the orchestra and the man on its podium." He writes, "Ultimately, this calculated attack on a music critic doing his job casts a suspicious light on his detractors and their motivations."
The Orange County Register's Arts Blog (which noted Welser-Most's nickname "Worse-Than-Most") also took the writer's side: "Rosenberg was only doing his job. To state the obvious: A critic is not supposed to be a cheerleader, or to help the local orchestra sell tickets."

A PLACE IN THE AUVERGNE

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Vacation /Business Trip Furnished Apartment in Paris

The NYT Now Allowing Comments on its Op-Ed Pieces (fishbowlNY)

"Many of you who read the New York Times online will no doubt already have noticed that a comments function has been added to the op-ed columns," writes fishbowlNY.

I hadn't noticed because I don't read NYT editorials. They are behind the news curve, predictable and in the age of the commenteriat, not that interesting.

Anyway, that aside, here's what fishbowlNY has to say:

Now instead of spending Sunday brunch screaming at your relatives and friends over the latest Friedman, Dowd, or Rich column (really, is Kristol even worth the effort?) you can post it directly to the Times webpage, in CAPITALS if you so choose.
We put a call in to the Times to find out exactly when the comments went live, and whether they have any idea which column has accumulated the most so far, and are still waiting to hear back (we imagine they are having a pretty busy time of it this week thanks to a certain senator from Arizona). But based on a cursory glance at this week's posts we're going to hazard a guess that MoDo is probably leading. However! As we look again to get a better tally it seems that not all of her columns in the last two weeks have allowed comments, or else, maybe they've been removed? Ideas anyone?

International Herald Tribune to Celebrate Suzy Menkes's Anniversary with a Museum Retrospective in Paris

Below, the press release from the NYT's about Suzy's party in Paris on Saturday.

If you were there, you're in, if not you're not.

NB

Note below how IHT tries to reference the IHT's longstanding relationship and coverage of fashion, before Suzy.

Why?

Suzy is a year or two off retirement and the big question is this: will the IHT retain all that fashion advertising if she goes. Actually, it's not certain Suzy would retire, she's under no obligation to, and certainly the IHT wouldn't want her to. That said, there is a succession issue of some importance to be considered.

What I find curious is how the NYT isn't leveraging Suzy more in their pages. I personally don't know the name of the NYT fashion editor nor what her influence is. To be followed....


The International Herald Tribune (IHT) will hold an exhibition to celebrate a milestone in the career of its world renowned fashion editor, Suzy Menkes. The exhibition entitled "Suzy at 20" will be held at the Galliera, Musee de la Mode de la Ville de Paris from September 28 to October 6, 2008. It will be free to the public.
"Suzy at 20" will be a retrospective of the high quality, international journalism Ms. Menkes has contributed to the IHT during the twenty years she has been fashion editor. It will give a flavor of the great diversity of her work, from her critique of the collections to her analysis of the trends in the global luxury goods industry. It will also cover Ms. Menkes's reviews of major cultural exhibitions.
The IHT has had links with fashion since the early 1890s when its first pages dedicated to fashion appeared. It has enjoyed the contributions of great fashion editors like Eugenia Sheppard and Hebe Dorsey, but during the past twenty years the quality and quantity of the IHT's international fashion coverage has increased beyond measure under Ms. Menkes's editorship.
Alongside her influential reporting and exclusive video interviews with fashion's movers and shakers on iht.com/style, Ms. Menkes created and hosts the IHT luxury conference series, a gathering of the top commercial and creative figures that is held annually throughout the world. This year's conference will be held in New Delhi, India in December.
Stephen Dunbar-Johnson, publisher of the IHT, said: "We hope that this exhibition marking Suzy's two decades at the IHT can pay some small homage to her great achievements. Her talent is rare and her contribution to the paper is enormous."
In recognition of her remarkable contributions to fashion journalism, Ms. Menkes was made a Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur in France in 2005. She then received the OBE - Officer of the Order of the British Empire from Queen Elizabeth, about whom Ms. Menkes has written several books. The exhibition materials were printed by Hewlett-Packard.
NOTES TO EDITORS:
About the International Herald Tribune (www.iht.com)
The International Herald Tribune (IHT) is the premier international newspaper for opinion leaders and decision makers around the globe. It combines the extensive resources of its own correspondents with those of The New York Times, is printed at 35 sites throughout the world and is for sale in more than 180 countries. Based in Paris since 1887, the IHT is part of The New York Times Company.
About The New York Times Company
The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT), a leading media company with 2007 revenues of $3.2 billion, includes The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, The Boston Globe, 16 other daily newspapers, WQXR-FM and more than 50 Web sites, including NYTimes.com, Boston.com and About.com. The Company's core purpose is to enhance society by creating, collecting and distributing high-quality news, information and entertainment.





A PLACE IN THE AUVERGNE
International Herald Tribune
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Passing on Kakutani (CJR)

The NYT books reviewer should have nixed her profile of Jon Stewart
By Jane Kim Fri 22 Aug 2008 11:59 AM

Why, exactly, did Michiko Kakutani write a profile of Jon Stewart in this past Sunday’s New York Times?
The infamous Times books critic depicted Stewart and The Daily Show in a way that seemed an attempt at an imprimatur, a High Brow Stamp of Approval from the diva of literary reviews. It’s an attempt that produced something of a non-result.
Stewart has been profiled before, in the Times and elsewhere—among others, Frank Rich did it in 2003, and Damien Cave did it in 2005. His portrait gains little luster from Kakutani’s standard mix of handpicked details and sweeping statements (how else do you review literary tomes?), because unlike even the most constant writers of our time (say, Updike, Roth, or even DeLillo), Stewart is almost constantly in the spotlight.
Kakutani’s stamp of approval is something of a Holy Grail for newbie authors, and her indictments of even the most canonic writers can almost reverse a flood of critical adoration. (Coming to mind is her recent review of Salman Rushdie’s newest book, which, she wrote, is “lacquered onto a plywood story with a heavy paintbrush that leaves lots of streaks and spots and results in a work that feels jerry-built, meretricious—and yes, quite devoid of magic.”)
Kakutani is a stranger to the world of comedy news shows, however, and while sending an outsider to report on an unfamiliar milieu can be a brilliant editorial strategy, it doesn’t work here. (Incidentally, the observer role has, in the past, suited her fairly well. In October of 2001, when she described how the interconnectedness provided by cable and Internet served as a conduit for a collective fear, her detachment made for an interesting, if somewhat pedantic, panoramic read of those landscapes.)
With respect to the Stewart piece, it’s not just that there’s little new about it (a legitimate and concrete gripe). There’s a more significant disconnect here, one caused by the inability of Kakutani As Critic to do what she does best. For once, her stamp of approval doesn’t really matter (and that’s what her well-honed thing is). Take this summation:
“The Daily Show” resonates not only because it is wickedly funny but also because its keen sense of the absurd is perfectly attuned to an era in which cognitive dissonance has become a national epidemic.
It’s typical Kakutani: the distillation of a theme or plot or entire book (take your pick) into a smartly written, syntactically attractive sentence. But her words slide off the page like so many extraneous drops of water, because The Daily Show has been distilled, and the verdict, from a mélange of reporters, pundits and viewers, is already in. Her own verdict—however confidently awarded—means very little.
It would have made sense for someone like Kakutani to write a piece outside of her ordinary scope if there were further need for a cultural arbiter to assess and assign value to the show. But The Daily Show doesn’t need Michiko Kakutani to confirm its relevance. The other option was to report the hell out of the piece and actually offer up some new and interesting details about Stewart and the evolving operations of the show. Unfortunately, Kakutani, whether she was resting easy on her critic’s couch or leery of entering the world of scrappy reportage, didn’t do that, either. At one point in the profile, she calls what Stewart does on a nightly basis—informing and entertaining—an “ambidextrous feat.” Kakutani, at least this time around, appears a bit more one-handed in her efforts.
http://www.cjr.org:80/behind_the_news/passing_on_kakutani.php