Boston Globe adds paid-for critic’s post
mainpress release:
SAN FRANCISCO, CA — The San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM), the Rubin Institute for Music Criticism, and the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation today announce a pilot program establishing a new model for supporting music journalism, in partnership with The Boston Globe.
The three San Francisco-based organizations will provide funding to support a 10-month position at the Globe for Zoë Madonna, winner of the 2014 Rubin Prize in Music Criticism.
On Monday, October 31, 2016, Madonna will begin her new post as classical music critic for the Globe corresponding with a short-term leave by staff classical music critic Jeremy Eichler, currently a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. The Rubin Institute for Music Criticism at SFCM seeks to prepare superb young writers as music journalists.
Through a generous gift from the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, the partnership with the Globe will test a concept whereby a non-profit consortium can team with a major news outlet to create a financially sustainable model for the work of music journalists. In such a program, news outlets will retain complete editorial control over assignments and content and they will provide some funding as well. The model is designed to facilitate part-time work by critics and will not be used to supplant existing full-time positions.
Stephen Rubin, president and publisher of Henry Holt & Co., and benefactor of the Rubin Institute, praised the new partnership: “The Boston Globe is one of the great American newspapers. That it has chosen to engage with us in this groundbreaking endeavor is particularly meaningful to me as a former journalist. It is also thrilling to see a winner of the Institute’s prize gainfully employed writing music criticism at a Pulitzer Prize-winning paper. I hope the Globe’s willingness to partner with us will be a model for other newspapers across the land.”
And here’s the paper’s sin on it.
I read the following lines (which were separated from the top of the item by a photo) and thought, “My God! They’ll let anyone, even pop stars, review classical music these days!”:
“On Monday, October 31, 2016, Madonna will begin her new post as classical music critic for the Globe corresponding with a short-term leave by staff classical music critic Jeremy Eichler, currently a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.”
“And here’s the paper’s sin on it.”
Do you mean spin? If the Boston Globe sinned, you need to tell us how.
There are almost no people only a year or two out of college who are sufficiently capable of writing acceptable classical music criticism. Unless Ms. Madonna has grown enormously since her initial efforts of last year, which were very amateurish, it is apparenty she is not one of them. But then again, the NY Times’s array of critics is hardly stellar (compared to, say, its drama critics). To paraphrase former Celtics coach Rick Pittino, Michael Steinberg and Richard Dyer are not going to walk through that doorway.