Columbia Report Finds Newspaper Arts Coverage Lagging
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Arts coverage in American newspapers is not keeping pace with growth of cultural activities across the country, reports a study from Columbia University’s National Arts Journalism Program.
Examining five-year trends in arts coverage, “Reporting the Arts II” examined 17 local and three national papers and found less editorial coverage and shorter arts articles, but more cultural listings.
About 40 people worked for more than 18 months to produce the 172-page report. Researchers examined about 8,700 articles. The study is the first to analyze quantitative trends, scrutinizing a topic that is often the subject of “chest beating” or anecdotal evidence, the director at NAJP, Andras Szanto, said.
While cautioning that the study sample is based on a limited number of outlets in a single month (October 2003), Mr. Szanto said it shows that arts coverage has been going “sideways or down in terms of editorial space.” This comes at a time when definitions of the arts are becoming more complex in America, he said. More forms of art or music are vying for limited space. “There is a sense in which the press is struggling to keep up” with the expansion.
Newspapers as a whole are shrinking in size, and arts coverage is shrinking along with them, he said. Arts sections have generally not been shrinking relative to other sections of the paper, except sports.
Newspapers have a special place in the civic culture, Mr. Szanto said. They are where one can find information one wasn’t looking for, unlike niche Internet sites. Arts coverage is not a frill, he said, but helps knit together the culture.
Among the publications tracked in the study,the report found the New York Times as a national exception, with its volume and diversity of arts coverage. Only the San Francisco Chronicle and the Chicago Tribune devoted even as much as half the New York Times coverage to arts, culture, and entertainment.
Newsrooms are being pulled in multiple directions, said Michael Janeway, NAJP’s former director. Enterprising editors, he said, manage to “keep the balance” in covering both local organizations, as well as popular, nationally distributed entertainment.
“It’s not just a by-the-numbers report,” said Mr. Szanto. It has included historical pieces by leading figures summing up topics such as the state of classical music criticism, fine arts on television, the arts underground, and a history of rock criticism. Nor is the study, he said, “a report card.”