Goldring Arts Journalism

Soapbox

"Journalists who know and understand the arts talk about them as passionately as an armchair quarterback talks about the last Super Bowl. Theater, dance and classical music aren't supposed to be stuffy. They're supposed to get your imagination all worked up, like Red Bull for the soul. If this field of writing is going to survive, we have the challenge of mainstreaming it into our papers and showing how the arts are constantly making an impact on our communities."
- Christopher Blank, critic, Memphis Commercial Appeal

"The best of arts journalism is like the best of non-fiction writing: concise, insightful, informative, amusing, rousing, enraging, sometimes experimental, and often long lasting. The worst of arts journalism is also like the worse of non-fiction writing: long-winded, disorderly, repetitive, discouraging, elitist, and gratefully forgotten."
- Mary Warner Marien, fine arts, Goldring program core faculty, Syracuse University

"The critic must tell us about our world, not just a single arts event."
- Michael Barnes, arts and entertainment editor, Austin American-Statesman

"Does arts criticism have a future? Yes, as long as the people involved in it can see the difference between providing context and understanding and telling people whether something is 'good' or not."
- Mike Johansson, editor, Insider, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

"I see myself as an advocate - for the art form, for the audience and for the artists. I think the ultimate responsibility of the critic, as it is for any journalist, is to be honest, to offer balanced and fair reporting. Of course balance and fairness are often in the eyes of the beholder, but that is my goal."
- Karyn Collins, critic, Asbury Park Press

"The biggest challenge to arts journalism right now is to come to terms with who its audience is, could potentially be, and what arts journalists are doing to alienate most of their potential readers, artists and non-artists alike. I'm leading the charge."
- Erica Brath, contributor, Philadelphia Weekly

"My hope for the Goldring program is that degree recipients will develop a professional ethos shaped by eager curiosity and a generosity of spirit, rather than the presumption of authority. The successful graduate should be one ready to engage the public in a mutual pursuit of the clearest possible insight into music, its place in the lives we lead, and its role in illuminating the human condition."
- Daniel S. Godfrey, music, Goldring program core faculty, Syracuse University

"I recently wrote an op-ed on a political subject and received all sorts of hate mail. It wasn't pleasant, but part of me wished arts journalism could elicit the same kind of passionate response."
- Andras Szanto, National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University

Why I'm the audience you love to hate:

Why are they talking if they don't understand? Nothing destroys credibility like parading a lack of knowledge before the public.
Solomon wasn't a journalist. In the world of art, there is what's created, and there is the response to it - the rest is up for grabs. Nobody's an authority. If Picks and Pans were Manna and Bans there'd be no written stinkers.
The puff piece. A lackey doing the master's bidding. Liberté! Sororité! Fraternité!
Who cares about your theory? Opinions are, like…you know? Everyone's entitled to them but, like, that doesn't mean I have to listen.
Singing the Painting. Dance the Parthenon? Weave Godot?

- Craig MacDonald, theater, Goldring program core faculty, Syracuse University