[contextly_auto_sidebar] FOR the last few months I've been meaning to revisit some of the abiding concerns of this blog and the book that inspired it. Mostly, I'm talking about what we used to call the press and now typically describe as the news media. My overall sense is that some parts of the creative economy have healed since I began writing my book in the teeth of the recession and … [Read more...]
The Murder of the LA Weekly
[contextly_auto_sidebar] SOUTHERN Californians have been bludgeoned with bad news lately, as a number of media outlets -- LAist, BuzzFeed, Los Angeles magazine, the LA Times, and the OC Weekly -- have either shut down or seen major layoffs. (In Orange County, editor Gustavo Arellano resigned after being asked to machine-gun his staff.) Perhaps the most disturbing of these is the fresh murder … [Read more...]
Rolling Stone, Music Journalism, and the Baby Boom
[contextly_auto_sidebar] LIKE a lot of people I know, I've just finished the biography of Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner. Sticky Fingers is more than just the story of one man, though it gets close to its subject: It's a real cultural history of English and American music, of American magazines, of pop culture in general, and a shadow biography of what I call Boomer Triumphalism. Wenner, … [Read more...]
Unions, Journalism, and the Creative Class
[contextly_auto_sidebar] IF we needed another reason to disdain the billionaires who increasingly dominate our political and cultural life: The Chicago Cubs owner Joe Ricketts shut down several news sites, including Gothamist and LAist because the New York staff tried to unionize. This is from a new New York Times op-ed by Hamilton Nolan, "A Billionaire Destroyed His Newsroom Out of … [Read more...]
The Mess We’re In: Politics, Economy and Journalism
[contextly_auto_sidebar] OVER the last few weeks, I've been asked on several occasions if I can explain what the hell happened to this country. (I've been in London and Ireland for some of that time.) The simple answer is that I am as shocked as anyone by the turn in the US (and to some extent by the related idiocy of Brexit.) But I do have some hunches. So while I try to keep this blog … [Read more...]
Arts Journalism and the Culture Crash
[contextly_auto_sidebar] SOME things have gotten a bit better since I published my book two years ago; some have unraveled more or less on schedule. One thing that does not seem to be improving is the state of cultural journalism: Arts critics (and reporters, like yours truly) continue to be laid off as publications scale back and decide -- just as school boards do in lean times -- that … [Read more...]
Snapshots from the Culture Crash: 1
[contextly_auto_sidebar] LONGTIME music journalist Steve Mirkin has been, like a lot of us in the creative class, though a series ups and downs since the Internet remade journalism and the recession undercut the middle class. He appears briefly in my book Culture Crash. Here is an update, which begins around January 1. It was not going to be a happy new year for me. After more than two … [Read more...]