Jay Rayner: Bloggers Kill The Newspaper Opinon Writer

JAY Rayner on why bloggers kill the newspaper writers:

It could be worse. At least those of us in Britain who make our living from our opinions are still gainfully employed. Across America it’s a different story. Paid newspaper critics from a number of disciplines are being laid off or redeployed, their judgment deemed superfluous to requirements in the age of the net. Book review pages are becoming increasingly skinny. Television sections are disappearing. In April, Sean Means, the film critic of the Salt Lake Tribune in Utah, used his blog to publish a roll call of his movie-reviewing colleagues who, since the spring of 2006, were no longer in the opinion business: ‘Steve Ramos, Cincinnati CityBeat, position eliminated … Jami Bernard, New York Daily News, contract not renewed … Michael Atkinson, Village Voice, laid off …’ At that point it ran to 28 names across the US media but since then it has stretched inexorably on.

Newspapers are chasing web straffic - the Mail’s site is a soft porn and celeb fest; the Telegraph’s site specialises in tales of weird bodies; the Guardian site has more cheap comment than anyone can ever read; the Express site is just crap…

Watch out for the new Anorak…

Anorak

Posted: 13th, July 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Twitterings Comments (3) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink