Save This Endangered Species: Book Reviews
Thanks to pressure from corporate owners and shareholders eager to turn a quick profit, newspapers in recent years have been cutting back or eliminating their book review coverage. Their main excuse: not enough advertising from publishers to support the reviews. But manufacturers of sporting equipment don’t advertise either, and I see little cutback in the sports pages.
Just last week the Los Angeles Times folded its book review section into an opinion section , although editor David Ulin argued in his editor’s note that these were changes “to forge a synthesis between print and online content that will allow us not only to maintain our commitment to engaged reviews and criticism but also to expand the very nature of our books coverage.”
Also last week the Atlanta Journal-Constitution eliminated its book reviewer position but did “generously” permit its reviewer, Teresa Weaver, to apply for another position at the newspaper. Fed up with the increasing erosion of book coverage, the National Book Critics Circle has launched a campaign to save book reviews, including a petition to save AJC’s well-regarded book review section, and a new series on the NBCC’s blog Critical Mass that will feature posts by concerned writers, interviews with book editors, and more.
So put down that book you are reading, get off your couch, and turn on that computer. Join the over 1000 authors (including Ian Rankin, Richard Powers, and Michael Connolly), editors, librarians, and booklovers in signing this petition. Save the Book Review!
This is very troubling stuff. In this highly instrumental age we’re inclined to see book reviewing simply as advice to consumers–should I buy this book or not?–but done properly it’s much more than that: It’s a distinguished craft that resides at the center of our discourse about ideas.
My colleague J.E. Luebering has further thoughts on this:
http://blogs.britannica.com/blog/main/2007/04/the-life-of-john-murray-and-the-death-of-us-book-reviewing/
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