The New York Times has quietly axed its coverage of local arts, cuisine, and theater, as part of the paper’s efforts to “revamp” the newsroom for the modern age. The Times recently laid off dozens of longtime contributors on the local culture beat, a move that is devastating to many of the treasured institutions who will no longer receive coveted exposure in the “Paper of Record.”
“For all of us in the arts, this decision is an unmitigated disaster,” Bram Lewis, artistic director of the Schoolhouse Theater in the Northern Westchester, told Deadline Hollywood. Lewis and others expressed concern that the loss of Times coverage could severely hamper the ability of some institutions to survive financially.
The cuts come as the financially struggling Times is slashing coverage across the board. Earlier this month, the paper announced that it would no longer cover local crime and fires, a decision that was defended by (supposedly independent) Public Editor Liz Spayd, who argued that a paper with such “lofty international ambitions” probably shouldn’t devote resources to “covering news of no interest to readers in Beijing or London.”
Times metropolitan editor Wendell Jamieson announced the cuts to arts, theatre and food coverage in an August 2 email to more than two dozen contributing critics and reporters, according to Deadline Hollywood.
“[Executive Editor] Dean Baquet and I have decided that the resources and energy currently devoted to these local pages could be better directed elsewhere,” Jamieson wrote, as he told the longtime writers that their services were no longer needed.
One area where the paper has decided to devote these resources and energy is in the hiring of a “gender editor” to lead a new “cross-platform, global coverage vertical on the topic of gender and identity.” The recently announced vertical is part of the Times‘ effort to create a “reimagined newsroom” for the digital age.
Another of the new editors being hired will cover “climate change” a topic that the Times calls “the most important story in the world“.
Perhaps all the people concerned about what the lack of New York Times coverage could mean for cultural institutions in New York and the surrounding areas should just shut up, lest they come across as insufficiently committed to social justice.
The Times recently ran a piece lamenting mankind humankind’s discovery of fire because it might have helped give rise to the patriarchy.
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