One of the more interesting effects of the Great Newspaper Meltdown of the early 21st century has been its impact on coverage of the arts. The disappearance of arts criticism and coverage from many of the nation’s newspapers has led people in communities across the country to establish their own journalistic beachheads to combat the problem.
Palm Beach ArtsPaper, of course, is one of those redoubts, and later today, there will be a discussion at the University of Southern California about the future of arts journalism. This summit, organized by the National Arts Journalism Project, will feature 10 showcase and public projects the people at the NAJP think are worthy of looking at to find new directions in arts journalism. (You can read details here.)
The summit will be streamed live starting at noon Eastern time today, and we’ve agreed to host the live feed on our sister site at www.palmbeachartspaper.com. It should be an interesting discussion, if you are at all interested in the wider question of how arts coverage is being handled these days. I suspect we’ll find reason for encouragement along with the requisite hand-wringing; we’ve certainly been encouraged here at ArtsPaper by the response from our readers online and in print.
If you’ve got some time to tune in today to some of the discussion, I’m sure it will be well worth your time. Our embedded Web video console at the other ArtsPaper site is ready to roll, and if you’re interested, surf on over between noon and 4 p.m. today to see what it’s all about.
— Greg Stepanich