Tribune’s Vision for Arts Coverage: Internal Restructuring!
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Not surprisingly, Twohey has emerged as head honcho in the new scheme. No one will have the title of entertainment editor, which until last September belonged to Richard Christiansen, who now goes by the title senior writer and chief critic. Instead, a group of editors will report to Twohey, whose principal expertise is newspaper and magazine design, not the arts. Each editor will be responsible for one area of coverage, such as books, pop music, radio and television, and performing arts (which will probably include dance, theater, and classical music), and each will work with a group of writers, creating what Twohey calls a “team” approach to arts coverage. The editors will meet daily with Twohey to assess what stories are available for all sections of the paper, from the news pages to the Overnight page to Tempo. The Friday pullout and the Sunday Arts section will stay the same.
What’s missing in the plan is any indication that the Tribune recognizes the new directions cultural coverage has taken at the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, where arts matters are taken seriously. Those papers have discovered that arts and entertainment are good for more than boosterism and reviews–they can also generate news in the same way that business and politics can. Twohey’s attempt to get a metro reporter–if it succeeds–may help to toughen the Tribune’s cultural coverage, but one inexperienced reporter with no established sources in the arts world isn’t going to change things single-handedly, and there’s reason to wonder whether Twohey has a vision that will inspire or redirect staffers now under his command. He unabashedly defends one of the Tribune’s worst arts-news gaffes of recent vintage, Christiansen’s rehash of the endlessly publicized story behind the creation of the musical Les Miserables, which was shamelessly run on the front page. Twohey’s reasoning: the story deserved significant placement because some 750,000 people saw the musical in Chicago. Does that mean some asinine, overhyped television show could get front-page treatment if enough people watched it? We’ll see.
Though business is a little better at other movie houses around town, exhibitors say most of the fall’s major releases, including Frankie & Johnny and Little Man Tate, have performed disappointingly in Chicago. Only House Party 2 and The People Under the Stairs have pulled in good business. Exhibitors are blaming high ticket prices and the absence of movies with broad-based appeal.
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