News broke last month that Scott Cantrell, the Dallas Morning News’ full-time classical music critic since 1999, will be taking a buyout offered by the paper effective this September. Cantrell has said that he will continue to write for the Morning News on a more limited freelance basis during the 2015/2016 season as he transitions towards retirement.
Cantrell’s exit raises questions about the future of classical criticism in Dallas and the state of Texas as a whole, where he is currently the only full-time classical music critic employed by a daily newspaper. The DMN has yet to announce whether they will be replacing Cantrell with another full-time classical critic, but given current trends in print journalism, it won’t be terribly surprising if they choose a different approach for classical coverage moving forward (nationwide there are only around a dozen daily newspapers that still employ classical critics full-time).
There are, of course, plenty of writers covering classical music in Texas and around the country for online publications or on a freelance basis for newspapers and magazines (myself included). In many ways concert reviews and classical music stories are actually more abundant, represent more diverse views and opinions, and are more accessible today than they were when print media still thrived at the hands of a few almost exclusively white men with secure employment, comfortable salaries and ample benefits.
So what, exactly, is lost when newspapers move away from the old full-time critic model? The gut reaction of many upon news of a paper’s critic retiring is to heavily sigh and bemoan the loss of quality criticism. But is it all bad news? I recently posed that and other questions to Jonathan Martin, the Dallas Symphony’s President and CEO and someone with more than a little skin in this game.
According to Martin, “It’s not all bad news. The changes at the DMN reflect a systemic change in the ways that Americans consume news and information. Those same changes affect all of us in business, entertainment, and culture. We [at the Dallas Symphony] are currently augmenting the ways we serve our audiences. There will be more multi-media and more outlets for our performances, and we assume that is the same kind of transition that is happening at the DMN.”
I asked Martin to consider what classical coverage might look like if the DMN can no longer sustain a full-time classical critic and his outlook was less negative than you might expect. “The current critic landscape in Dallas is already quite positive in my view,” he says. “We are lucky to have a variety of voices through a variety of media platforms. It’s important that there is not one perspective on the scene, but rather a number of discussions in a number of places. The Dallas Morning News’ audience is an important audience, but it complements the larger cultural coverage throughout many different publications and sources.”
Not surprisingly, Martin also believes that our city and region offer enough classical music in both quantity and quality to justify a full-time critic at the DMN. “We hope that the Morning News would concur that having a full-time critic is important to supporting a healthy arts and culture ecosystem in Dallas-Fort Worth,” he says.
Martin also has ideas about qualities he’d like to see in a new DMN critic. Fairness, knowledge, and curiosity are at the top of his list. “I’d like to see focus on all kinds of classical music organizations here in Dallas – smaller, emerging, experimental groups as well as the established and larger ensembles. I’d like to see someone who can be an advocate of the arts – an intelligent and independent voice who can hold the arts and culture community to a high standard.”
If there is one, the DMN’s next critic will definitely not be be telling the entire story when it comes to classical music in Dallas, and local classical fans will continue to read reviews and news from increasingly varied sources. As Doug McLennon pointed out in a very interesting conversation with Cantrell on WQXR, we shouldn’t romanticize old models when it comes to discussions about criticism. We’re in a better, more dynamic place now. So let’s ditch the heavy sighs.
For what it’s worth, I agree with Martin that our city and region deserve a full-time critic at the DMN. While freelancers or part-time employees would probably provide ample reviews of concerts at the paper, I would miss having someone that, whether or not I always agreed with him, provided timely, consistent, extremely thorough coverage of classical news in our region. In short, what we will lose if the DMN doesn’t replace Cantrell with a staff classical critic is having someone who is entirely dedicated to the local and regional classical beat, someone who not only reviews concerts, but also keeps up with and reports on the minutiae of classical organization’s business and personnel news.
Regardless of how things shake out, one thing is certain: there is a big, interested audience listening to and talking about classical music in north Texas. It will be exciting to see how one or more new critics at the Morning News will contribute to, and hopefully enhance, that conversation.
