Exclusive: Major UK newspaper abolishes classical critics

C Porumbescu says:

The Birmingham Post was the paper where Ernest Newman cut his teeth; it carried the first reviews of Elgar’s big premieres in the Town Hall and was a huge cheerleader for the Rattle revolution. It’s a miracle in many ways that it was still paying for reviews at all (by all accounts it’s more than one or two of the nationals currently do, as well as the two leading review websites); but given the (tiny) size of its arts budget it punched well above its weight for years – regularly carrying up to a dozen live reviews per edition, and covering music-making (amateur and semi-pro as well as all the major professional gigs in Brum) in the West Midlands as far afield as Longborough, Cheltenham and Presteigne.

That’s largely – possibly solely – down to the untiring efforts of Christopher Morley, who recruited, trained and organised a network of critics across the region, largely on his own initiative and with little financial support from the paper’s owners, Trinity Mirror. Several of Chris’s “discoveries” have gone on to writer for national publications. I suppose it’s heartening that they’re willing to carry on for free – but this means that in order to generate a microscopic increase in Trinity Mirror’s bottom line, corporate accountants (it won’t have been an editorial decision) have left the UK’s second city (an urban area the size of Amsterdam or Vienna) without any regular paid music criticism. Since Metro axed its 13 regional arts desks overnight in 2009 (a blow which deprived most UK cities of regular professional arts coverage, and which went largely unreported by the London-based arts media), the Post has been holding the line alone in Birmingham. Perhaps it’s surprising it lasted as long as it did – and again, that’s down to one man, Christopher Morley; in his own way, a hero of the profession.