The New York Times doesn’t want four senior culture critics anymore.
Are they looking for influencers? At this point, why not?
The Times says they’re re-assigning, code for canning, pop music vet Jon Pareles, theater critic Jesse Green, classical music expert Zach Woolfe, and TV critic Margaret Lyons.
Why? Because they have experience and knowledge and respected (yes even Jesse Green) by the readers.
Also, they don’t have TikTok accounts.
Pareles has been the chief pop critic since 1988. Just last week he wrote an incredible piece on Bruce Springsteen. Pareles has been able to write about new and breaking acts as well as classic artists. He’s shaped the paper’s opinion about pop, rock, R&B, etc with great taste and knowledge of his subjects. Forcing him out is just stupid.
The other three have been at their jobs for some time. Green gets a lot of flack and “everyone hates him.” But everyone “hated” all the former theater critics including Frank Rich and Clive Barnes. Wolfe and Lyons are all well respected.
Sia Michel is the editor who caused this chaos. She thinks moving respected critics to other jobs is going to be fun for them. In other words, they weren’t having a career, they were just piece workers in the factory. Maybe AI will take over.
Sad stuff, that even the Times doesn’t care about the reporters or the readers. But authority no longer matters. The main thing is, can you sell $20 objects from China to unwitting customers.
