I'll Trade a Loaf of Bread and A Dozen Eggs For That Critic
Screenville’s Harry Tuttle, in the comments section, asked me to expand on “the usefulness of markets in determining value” and how that relates to film criticism. I work for a pro-freee market economic think tank. I’m not an economist by training (I do other sorts of work for the organization), but by my job's nature, I end up reading my share of material related to business practice and economic policy.
So here's the thing:
Businesses exist, above all, to make a profit. Profit is made when you sell a good or a service at a price higher than what it cost you to produce or acquire it. The going price for that product or service is, essentially, a negotiated value between the seller and buyer. In other words, the price tells us what something is worth. Obviously, it's bad business--irresponsible business, in fact--to continue funding an individual, project, or department that loses money.
A film critic, like every writer or division of a newspaper or for-profit pub, has some responsibility, then, to be profitable for his employer. Why keep a critic on if he's losing money? That's bad business, plain and simple, and while one might argue that a good critic ought to be kept on for reasons other than his profitability (we need to support good writing, further the public interest, etc etc), I don't entirely buy it. Sure, some loss period may be necessary for the critic to build an audience. But the only way a for-profit publication will really ever be able to support good writing for long is if it makes a profit.
It’s probably impossible to judge the dollar value of any particular staff writer, but what this suggests to me is that critics have some responsibility to consider their audience when writing. Does that mean modifying their opinions to what they think audiences want to hear? Of course not; not only is that not helpful—it’s futile. Brandon Gray does a pretty accurate box office analysis each week, but he’s still tossing darts at the wall (granted, he’s a pretty well-practiced dart tosser). One can’t predict the public taste and shouldn’t attempt to. But a critic—especially in a for-profit publications—cannot simply ignore those who he’s writing for entirely in favor of his own interests and idiosyncrasies. A public platform to opine is not a birthright; it’s a blessing, and it requires one to remember the public. As Tyler Cowen would say: Markets for everything.
posted by Peter @ 7/25/2006 05:31:00 PM
10 Comments:
Thanks for taking the time to answer my question.
I realize our principles about criticism and ethics somehow diverge. Profit isn't the only prospect in life, and thanksfully not everyone on Earth believes "success" can be quantified financially.
I wonder how newspapers figure when a movie-reviewer stopped being profitable... there are other (political) reasons why a critic is retired.
Considering a newspaper a "business" rings wrong in so many ways... if it is it's a really bad one (low profit), if it makes good money then it's bad journalism (compromission).
Well, we'll have to agree to disagree on that. ;)
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Well, one answer is that this is why lots of interesting journalism doesn't aim to make money. The
publication that I write for most often -- National Review Online -- has never made money in its online or print forms. No secret about that, and it's not alone. The Atlantic, Harpers, Salon, The Nation, The New Republic, The American Prospect, etc... all lose money. And sure, they'd love to make money, but they're there to promote their ideas, not to make a buck.
These places survive because they're worth the cost to their donors, who subsidize the publications. For those individuals, the value of the journalism is so high that they'll pay to keep it going, even when it perpetually loses cash. This works out for the rest of us in those cases, but not every publication has a license to lose money.
A for profit business like a newspaper, though, has to make money in order to survive. So maybe you don't want to consider a newspaper a business, but without profit, there won't be a newspaper to consider. Moreover, a strategy that aims to expand both audience and profit is going to be better for the arts in the long run. The higher the profit levels, the more critics, the more writers, the more coverage of everything a paper is going to be able to fund. When papers lose money, critics lose jobs (see: Jami Bernard at NY Daily News). So it's not just that I consider something successful only it's profitable--it's that successful publications are better for journalists and journalism, because they can pay for more, better work.
Why do you support mercantile journalism if you are working for a non-profit publication yourself?
If readers give up on a newspaper altogether because of the film critic, it sounds as absurd as if they subscribe to the concurrent newspaper because there are more sunny days in their weather forecast...
Either you offer crowd pleasing stuff, or you do actual journalism. They obviously appeal to a different set of readers.
Criticism can still exist without a payroll and a public platform.
Money and readers don't define who are capable critics. If newspaper only hire populist hacks, it doesn't mean they have a film criticism page. They only fool the fools...
But in a for profit publication, why hire a critic if not for the bottom line? Out of some sense of responsibility to the arts? Please. These are for profit enterprises we're talking about. When profits fall, the arts writers are the first to go. Whether or not there will be a mass exodus from the paper with a different critic (and I don't think that many critics alone inspire subscriptions and cancellations), the point of hiring a critic is to add to the paper's value. If the suits thought there were a more profitable way to spend the money, I promise they'd be doing it.
This is not to draw a direct line between being profitable and being a good critic--the two are in no way synonymous.
But a critic who damns his audience for the sake of art (or anything else for that matter) won't have one for long.
The mingling of art and commerce is always tricky, and I don't propose to have all the answers. But I can't really abide by the idea that thinks a for profit business should forgo profit for some nebulous artistic value, nor that a critic should disregard his or her audience.
You know, if there was a recipe for profit, there will be only one type of newspaper out there, all following the exact same model. Why be original if it's less profitable?
Well even diehard capitalists know that success depends on a lot of factors that aren't quantifiable in numbers of subscriptions. If populist Ebert is a money maker, how come elitist Rosenbaum can get a job in a similar newspaper?
Hopefully defining the identity of publication, by the editorial line and the personality of its writers, isn't subdued by the binary rule of "profitable/non-profitable?"...
Your "for profit busines" nebulous theory might work for Walmart, but the press is another form of "commerce". A newspaper is a public service not an invariable produce.
Newspaper don't ignore profits and audience... that's your interpretation and your conclusion. I think that to maintain quality journalism, despite the tides of popular fads, is more respectful to the readers by proving a continuity of identifiable content to fidelize the targeted readership on the long term.
If populist Ebert is a money maker, how come elitist Rosenbaum can get a job in a similar newspaper?
But for how much longer will critics like Rosenbaum have their jobs if they're being kept on just out of an out of date sense of prestige? Perhaps it's because editors are redefining what they want from their film critics that people like Michael Wilmington or Jami Bernard are being dismissed or reassigned.
Who says Rosenbaum is out of date?
The press market? The movie market?
To me he's the closest american newspaper critic to Bazin.
Do you believe the future of journalism is in flattering the masses by giving them what they want (you're talking about tabloids there), instead of garanteeing the high standards of moral ethics and value judgements?
I'm not saying that Rosenbaum is out of date. I'm suggesting that maybe he was hired based on an assumption that the presitge of having him on staff was profitable, and maybe that assumption is out of date.
I'm suggesting that right now unless we include economic considerations in our discussion of film criticism we will never see someone like Rosenbaum (or Bazin) writing for a paper like the Chicago Reader again.
Your "social service" analogy isn't adequate in an era in which there is less and less money available to publications for "luxuries" of this sort.
I know what you meant. Why would the prestige statute of an art film critic would be obsolete? Why is it luxury? What makes you (and others) say that? Is it because of the growing gap between audience expectations and the unpopular critical verdicts?
If the critic revise judgement because it's unpopular or because his/her job is at stake... it's working under psychological/political pressure, and this kind of corruption is worthless "criticism" (quote whores, reviewers, P.R.).
If you think that "the analysis of commercial success" is different to "adequation to B.O." why do you always bring up the popular/financial argument used by editors to get rid of a critic who allegedly doesn't make enough money? I mean, analyzing commercial success and social trends around movie culture can be very well as boring and elitist as "pure criticism" can be to the general readership...
You know what? If the Chicago Reader thinks they need a more popular critic or no film section at all... good grief. It's tough for Rosenbaum's way of living, but it won't change the ethical standards of criticism. He's published worldwide, and writes hardcover books, so I'm not worrying about him.
What I'm saying is that the press doesn't define what "criticism" is or is not, according to their marketing needs. Either they accomodate critics, or they will shape up something else that looks more shiny and attractive.
I'd like to see what you have to justify this "defense of the commercial industry aspect". On principles I differ. But it's because we are talking abstracts there. Could you guys take and exemple to show me how the commercial considerations actually nurture the content of a critical analysis of a given movie?
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