In the journalistic profession, arts and entertainment journalists are often seen as the lowest of the low. What we cover is unimportant and lacks substance. News reporters, who cover the breaking stories in various arenas-national and local politics, crime, etc.-sometimes see us as journalists who lack merit. After all, shouldn’t we be covering something important?
Whenever I have spoken with professional journalists who have asked me which section of my school newspaper I work for, I have noticed thinly veiled contempt at the path I have chosen. For those who read Cadenza with any regularity, you’ll know that for the most part I tend to write about obscure music that, I have been told, nobody wants to read about. That, or I try to write about St. Louis culture outside of the Washington University mainstream-gambling, dive bars, greasy spoons, other things that interest me. I hope my interest spurs interest in what I think are worthy things in the city and in the widespread musical landscape to be discovered and enjoyed.
I have begun to think that this is a lost cause. Feedback in general to our section is fairly negative. The movies and albums we review are too obscure, we don’t pay enough attention to the University’s own music scene, we do not cover mainstream popular culture, and our arts and entertainment section is too focused on arts and entertainment and not enough on personality profiles and fluff pieces to interest the average reader.
Not only are we seen as the lowest of the low by other journalists, we arts and entertainment journalists are also seen as the lowest of the low by people in arts and entertainment fields. There is an old clich that every rock critic is a failed musician and every film critic is a failed screenwriter/director/actor-it is very similar to the idea that many in academia are failures because of the old adage, “those who can’t do, teach.” Those who write about music must be doing what they are doing just so they can come the tiniest bit closer to living the dream that they have failed to reach, right?
Rock critics and journalists are treated very poorly by those they write about. It seems to make little sense-besides word of mouth, press is often the only avenue for bands to become well-known. Arts and entertainment journalists are an important part of the whole machine, yet they are seen as the cog that only receives as little WD-40 as possible to keep it running. Countless times I have set up interviews with bands only to have them repeatedly back out, leaving a disgruntled publicist flailing to keep me interested in writing a preview or a review. I know part of this has to do with working for a college newspaper-I guess if I was a rock star, I wouldn’t want to talk to me, either-but that is not the point.
I recently had the fortune of dining with some well-known journalists. Some wrote about world affairs and other high-falutin things, and some wrote about arts and entertainment or sports-I think sportswriters also have to deal with the whole failed (insert whatever here – rock star – director – athlete) problem. After hearing a lot of talk about the importance of this and that in journalism, my hope for the whole thing returned. It returned because of what a well-respected columnist said-something along the lines of: “You can get a headline on the front page totally wrong and no one will care, but if you mess up the TV schedule the switchboard will light up.” Another noted that more people write or call in about which comics run when than nearly anything else she had to deal with.
Surely, this rant is nothing more than that, a rant-incoherent babble by the editor of a section that, according to many on Student Life staff, no one reads, but in all of the random musings a point has emerged. There is an importance to what arts and entertainment journalists do. It’s just not one that’s often recognized by those who see themselves as the “real” journalists.