Letter To The AJC Editor From Robert Spano

May 17, 2007

To the Editor:

The AJC recently announced to its staff that designated reviewers for classical music, visual arts, and literature will be eliminated. This was reported by Creative Loafing and Julia Wallace of the AJC has made general comments on these changes but has provided no real reassurance on the specifics of future fine arts coverage in Atlanta. Ours is a city of growth and this loss would strike a disheartening blow to our ambitious aspirations.  If the AJC follows through with this decision, it will distinguish Atlanta as the largest city in the country without a classical music, book, or art critic on staff at its major newspaper.

Metropolitan Atlanta is in a state of tremendous development.  Our mayor, civic and business leaders have stated how important the arts are to the economic health and progress of this great city.  Artistic culture is Atlanta’s treasure and its profile to the world, and the AJC plays a critical role in that culture.

A newspaper’s practice of regularly reviewing fine arts is intrinsic to its civic mission.  Perception is creativity’s partner: writers need readers, artists need viewers, and musicians need listeners.  People have widely varied responses to these experiences that lead to lively and enlightening dialogue.  The AJC needs its qualified and discipline-specific reviewers to inform and enrich that dialogue.

Atlanta deserves a newspaper of substance – one that contributes to a city that values expression, ideas, and creativity.

Art matters.

Robert Spano

Comments

[David Blumenthal]

When the ASO arranged for Judith Green to be fired because she was critical of Spano, the ASO sealed its own fate. We cannot have only yes men and women in the arts.

[Linda Muir]

As a season subscriber to both the ASO and to Braves baseball, I think that losing critical review of the arts would be like losing the sports page. You can't have baseball without sportswriters, and you can't have Mozart without music critics. Without an emphasis on the arts, Atlanta will never be an international city.

[Sue Balcom]

True review and coverage of the Arts is perhaps the only redeeming part of any newspaper these days. We are forced to read the doom and gloom representation of world events, to be bombarded with political backbiting and to endure and evergrowing sensational dramatization of all of the sins and insanity of humanity. Please leave us one morsel of hope and beauty in the arts section. Staff it with people who have the soul to help us fill our lives with word pictures from the world of art we might not be able to see , hear or afford. These salaries are a small price to pay to promote the Arts in such a RICH city like Atlanta.

[Tom Shuler]

I agree with Mr. Spano's letter, but it is too little and too late.
Sometime in the recent past the AJC made a strategic decision (conscious or unconscious) to reduce its news coverage in favor of entertainment and thus appeal to an audience that has little or no concern for information and the arts. For those too new to Atlanta to remember, this comes in the shadow of the AJC's long and dismal record of coverage of the ASO and the arts scene in Atlanta. The AJC lost its journalistic integrity a long time ago. I have no expecation that the paper's management has any sense of its proper mission or the audience it serves, and thus any interest in supporting the arts. I dropped my subscription a few weeks ago simply because there wasn't any news. Long before that I gave up trying to find anything about the arts. Someone else needs to "pick up the baton" to fill the gap.

[Curtis Bryant]

This is not the first time that the AJC has cut arts coverage from its pages, so it is no surprise that the same boneheaded managerial thinking has re-emerged. Just when we were beginning to see an interesting variety of music reviews that covered more than just the obligatory ASO concerts, the fish wrapper has returned to its old tricks of cutting all forms of local arts coverage. This really fits the provinciality of the AJC and its shrinking relevance among national newspapers. I can get better news coverage in the New York Times. I can find almost anything for sale on line. I can read about sports anywhere, so unless I want to learn about the unique elements of Atlanta’s culture, what do I need this mediocre paper for? A recent guest editorial by Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Joel Connelly (5/17/07) quoted from the ancient Celtic poet, Cadoc the Wise: “To love his land, a man must love justice. To love justice, a man must love learning. To love learning, a man must appreciate poetry and song.” The AJC’s posture on arts coverage is more consistent with the overall educational standing of our state: near the bottom of the heap. Well then, let’s end by congratulating the AJC on its decision to cut arts coverage in Atlanta, since it will certainly reinforce to the rest of the nation the image of Atlantans and Georgians as a bunch of "dumb southerners."