Are Local Newspaper Television Critics Still Needed?
“Newspaper critics are a dying breed, in large part due to the fact that they seem less relevant to a younger audience,” Rick Ellis, co-founder of AllYourTV.com, wrote in his 2007 commentary, “Does the TCA still Matter” (TCA stands for the Television Critics Association). “The critics aren’t reflecting the changes in the industry, they’re not writing frequently enough, or about a wide enough range of programming.”
USA Today critic Robert Bianco likewise spoke about problems within the field when he addressed the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania in September 2007. “Many newspapers have started to cut back, first on their arts coverage and now including their TV coverage,” he commented.
“In Dallas, the Dallas Morning News dropped a well-respected, and very good TV critic, because they felt they didn’t need local coverage of TV, and they could find someone to write about the comings-and-goings of the local station and then just pick up a national voice for the criticism,” Bianco continued.
All of which raises an interesting question: are local newspaper television critics still needed, or can they continue to serve a relevant role in this modern-day media era? Rick Ellis clearly has his doubts, but Robert Bianco obviously disagrees. Before becoming the television critic for USA Today, he served a similar role for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and spoke about that experience.
“The one thing I was always sure of in Pittsburgh was that, yeah, people could read the New York Times and did, but they wanted to hear from us,” he observed. “They wanted to hear from the Post-Gazette, they wanted to hear a voice that reflected themselves.”
The current critic for the Post-Gazette, Rob Owen, has a like-minded attitude. Although his coverage is broad-based, as it should be, he puts an emphasis on news and commentaries relevant to the local Pittsburgh community. For instance, the 2007 Spike TV miniseries The Kill Pit was filmed in the area. The Pittsburgh region has also produced a number of reality show participants, including Survivor winners Jenna Morasca and Amber Brkich, and many television actors are graduates of Carnegie-Mellon University, including Zach Quinto of Heroes. Owen’s coverage of the above has been extensive.
But Rob Owen also has a “national” voice that one would not expect from someone who works for a Pittsburgh newspaper. One of Rick Ellis’ key arguments revolves around the TCA’s twice-a-year press gatherings, when critics from across the country meet in Los Angeles and attend panels hosted by the mainstream US networks.
“Ten years ago, giving a TV Critic in Cleveland access to quotes from Steven Bochco was great for both the critic and his newspaper,” Ellis wrote. “The readers didn’t realize he had the same quotes as the critic from Des Moines or Birmingham. Most people only were able to read the local coverage. But with the everyday use of the Internet, that lack of original coverage is noticeable both to readers and to the management at the respective newspaper.”
While this may indeed be true, Rob Owen has proven a knack for acquiring quotes and information that others somehow missed, tidbits that are pertinent to the rabid (and often younger) Internet-based fan community. For instance, when newspaper critics across the country began writing in 2003 about the upcoming fifth season of Joss Whedon’s Angel, the coverage was pretty much the same. Except for Owen, that is, as the online Spoiler Slayer web site noted: “The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette TV Editor, Rob Owen, also interviewed Joss during the WB Press Tour, and managed to get information that neither Kristin (of E!) or The Futon Critic turned up.”
And when Battlestar Galactica ended its third season in early 2007, it was Owen and the Post-Gazette that had the Monday morning wrap-up interview with series mastermind Ron Moore, as Herc at Aint-It-Cool News (another younger-oriented website) both pointed out and commented on.
Rob Owen also demonstrates the “tech-savvy” that Rick Ellis believes a number of current newspaper critics lack; when Apple first began offering episodes of television shows on iTunes, Owen wrote a very informative piece on the effects the Internet would have on the future of television. He also has his own “Tuned In Journal” blog available on the Post-Gazette website.
But although Owen is the type of television critic that Robert Bianco believes is still needed, as well as the overlooked missing-link of Ellis’s argument, he is not without his faults.
“Given all the industry changes, you would expect the TCA to work hard to remain relevant to both readers and the industry,” Rick Ellis also writes. “But they seem genetically incapable of doing so, adopting an odd arrogance for an organization whose members are frequently seen as less important to a newspaper’s success than the local home and garden editor.”
Unfortunately, Rob Owen at times exhibits that aforementioned “arrogance.” The most blatant example occurred during the July 2007 “Summer Press Tour.” During one of the discussions, ABC Entertainment president Stephen McPherson commented that there would be a major announcement regarding the hit-series Lost at that weekend’s Comic-Con panel in San Diego. This did not sit well with the television critics in attendance, and they pressured McPherson to make the revelation to them instead, namely that former cast member Harold Perrineau would be returning for season four.
“Clearly the dynamic is changing when people who have to pay to get into a fan convention are given a higher priority than journalists who reach millions of readers online and in print,” Owen wrote at the time. “Even if all the fanboys attending Comic-Con blog about news released there, it wouldn't have the reach of press tour.”
What Rob Owen seems to forget is that San Diego’s Comic-Con has evolved into a major entertainment industry event, with extensive coverage from the likes of Entertainment Weekly and CNN. Producers and actors of television series like Heroes and Lost even point out that the panel discussions at Comic-Con before their shows premiered helped build a “buzz” that had a direct, positive impact on their initial ratings. In fact, the DVDs for the first season of both those shows have bonus features saying as much. Instead of being abrasive, critics should be more willing to embrace the new landscape and acknowledge that the times have indeed changed.
Because they have. Journalism is not the same as it was pre-Internet. A.J. Leibling’s axiom that “Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one” no longer applies, even in regards to the coverage of television. Independent web sites like BuddyTV, Television Without Pity and TV Squad are challenging the mainstream media. Reporters like Kristen from E! and Herc from Aint-It-Cool-News are just as important sources of information as Jeff Jensen or Ken Tucker from Entertainment Weekly.
But that does not mean that the local newspaper television critic has become irrelevant. They do, after all, have the knowledge and connections to keep us informed. They just need to take a page from Rob Owen and stay focused on both the small picture as well as the large; or, as the saying goes, “think global, act local.” And if they could simply learn to bend with the times instead of fighting it, the “arrogance” that sometimes comes across could even turn into a genuine asset.
“Last I looked, we’re charging people,” Robert Bianco said at the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania, referring to the newspaper industry. “Even on the Internet we only exist if people think there’s some reason to come to us, to come to usatoday.com, or come to the Tribune Review or come to the Post Gazette, other than Joe-and-His-Pajamas-dot-com. And personally I think our attitude has to be a lot more that we are talking at you because we know more than you do. Politely put. Nicely put.”
And as with many things that Robert Bianco has to say, one could even argue “well put.”
Anthony Letizia (September 17, 2007)
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