Posts Tagged ‘Idolator’
Arts Morning Roundup: Ron Charles Prevails, Watchmen Sucks, Baseball Cards Are Expensive
Good morning, y’all! Top of the news pile has Maura Johnston leaving Idolator, and Ron Charles, aka, the muscle at Book World, getting his space in the Style section, goddamit. (For those of you who are not ravenously digesting R.C.’s every tweet: He nearly lost his slot in Style due to the insane number of inches required to review Sarah Palin’s new Inuit romance novel, Pantsuits with Wolves.)
Strange ways to write a novel, Johnny Cash’s love for Native Americans, the many manifestations of Watchmen, the best songs of the decade, and more, after the jump.
Maura Johnston Leaves Idolator
Maura Johnston announced today that she’s leaving Idolator, the pop music blog she’s edited for over three years.
“Just wanted to let you know that today is my last day as editor of Idolator. The site will continue on, and I will continue to write about music, but we’ve decided to part ways,” Johnston wrote on the site this afternoon.
Her departure will no doubt come as a shock to readers, who are by now used to seeing Johnston all over the web, from commenting on Perez Hilton in the Guardian to talking about American Idol on NPR; opportunities that–in this writer’s opinion–directly correlate to the time she’s put into editing one of the best music blogs on the web.
Johnston’s goodbye post doesn’t say why she’s leaving. Washington City Paper attempted to extract an explanation via email, but Johnston would only say that she is “really excited to see what happens next… and to get some sleep.”
There Will Be Blood: Notes from the Future of Music Coalition’s Journalism Panel
Yesterday, 13 music journalists convened at Georgetown University for the Future of Music Coalition’s Policy Summit panel, “Critical Condition: The Future of Music Journalism.”
Our ranks included reps from online-only (Scott Plagenhoef of Pitchfork, Maura Johnston of Idolator), old media vets (Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune, Tom Moon of the Philadelphia Inquirer), and some in-betweeners.
While there were a few too many panelists for a coherent discussion, the ideological breakdowns were awkwardly clear: New media vs. old media, generalists vs. niche(ists?), and many, many iterations of “Kids these days don’t know how to write about music,” followed by, “We’re all fucked.”
After the jump, who said what and why.
Read More “There Will Be Blood: Notes from the Future of Music Coalition’s Journalism Panel” »
The Federal Trade Commission Goes After Bloggers, Spares Journos Who Do the Same Thing!
According to GalleyCat, the Federal Trade Commission will fine independent bloggers up to $11,000 if they fail to disclose that they’ve received a product for free. This means book reviewers who get books for free, music reviewers who get music for free, stroller reviewers who get strollers for free, have to say as much in their reviews or risk massive, disproportionate penalties.
The FTC has argued that this standard doesn’t apply to traditional journalism outlets because “the newspaper receives the book and it allows the reviewer to review it, it’s still the property of the newspaper.”
It’s an innocuous but offensive requirement, but I’m more interested in the FTC’s imagined relationship between publishers and record labels and journalists and newspapers.
