by Jon Lackman | 30 September 2009 | Uncategorized
Artsjournal.com blogger Tyler Green has taken aim at an ongoing contest sponsored by the National Arts Journalism Program, a contest being co-directed by Artsjournal.com founder and editor Douglas McLennan (Green hasn’t mentioned the connection):
Several weeks ago, the National Arts Journalism Program launched a contest hoping to find new models for arts journalism. I questioned the exercise but wrote that I was grateful that NAJP had “provided an opportunity for a broader discussion of what art journalism should become.” Not any more … Of the NAJP contest’s five announced presenters (apparently five contest finalists are being held back in secret until Oct. 2), four have little-to-nothing to do with journalism. Three are infotainment projects that more closely resemble a hybrid of iTunes and Access Hollywood than they resemble the investigation, presentation or analysis of events, facts or news … The National Arts Journalism Project’s drift away from journalism is disappointing, but the next problem with the NAJP contest is just as puzzling. It laid down guidelines for entrants [regarding the eligibility of nonprofit projects] — and then admitted that it was disregarding them … Moving the goalposts after the entrants were in strikes at the integrity of the enterprise.
Addenda: Green apparently also weighed in on the journalistic credibility of one of the contest entrants. Worth noting also that fellow Artsjournal.com blogger Lee “Culturegrrl” Rosenbaum entered the contest. [I have included links to Google cache pages, because some original NAJP pages aren't working, at least not at the moment.]
Thanks for the post.
Re: the Rail, if a site isn’t journalism, it can’t have “journalistic credibility.” The mere printing of words doesn’t make something journalism…
Thanks for singling out my CultureGrrl entry. Here’s a better link to what I submitted for the contest: http://najp.org/summit/projects/culturegrrl/. Winners haven’t been announced yet, but, sadly, I was not among them.
Tyler Green has to be one of the grumpiest people on the internet, which is saying something. The combination of bile, pique, outrage, and prolific production seems to have made him the most prominent art blogger around.