There’s no such thing as a free ticket

Deborah Jones, former arts and Review editor of the Australian newspaper, weighs in on the widening row between Opera Australia and much of the media, after artistic director Lyndon Lyndon Terracini refused review facilities to a pair of prominent critics.

Deborah has much to say about the personalities involved, but her most important insight touches on the consensual, sometimes collusive relationship between performing arts organisations and the newspapers that review them.

She writes:

Not only is it customary for reviewers here to accept tickets – so do senior managers, editors and writers, not necessarily all of them directly involved in the organisation’s cultural coverage. In the good old days arts organisations’ largesse was sometimes extended to administrative staff. So what? It’s always been this way.

In other words, there is an entrenched and rather touching belief on our part that disinterested media coverage plus freebies doesn’t equal oxymoron. Although it is a far from satisfactory state of affairs the system continues because it is mutually beneficial. Mostly. We media types scarcely think about the fact that, almost always, reviewers are given not one but two tickets so they can bring a friend along to work, and that drinks are almost always laid on at the premiere. What could be regarded as career-ending inducements in other fields of endeavour are part of the landscape. They don’t stop us from writing a swingeing review if we see fit. We trust ourselves, of course we do. It is insulting to suggest anything else. (Which does raise the matter of quis custodiet ipsos custodes, but let’s move on …)

Full post here.