Criticise Me

The Observer reports an inter­esting decision over at the Daily Mail. With the retire­ment of its tele­vi­sion critic Peter Paterson, it has opted to replace him with… no-​​one. Since tele­vi­sion reviews are among the best-​​read sections of any news­paper, the decision seemed perverse. But, as Peter Preston explains, it is actually cleverly calculated:

Once upon a time, tele­vi­sion was full of national moments: mass audi­ences of 10 million or more tuning in and wanting to follow through the next day. But now that audience — frag­mented across hundreds of channels — has vir­tu­ally ceased to exist. Most of the time, any review of any show can only be valuable to a rel­at­ively small per­centage of readers. Soaps? An excep­tion, perhaps: you can catch up with them in the Saturday sup­ple­ments. But through-​​the-​​week reviews have lost their rel­ev­ance, just like television’s dom­in­ance of mass enter­tain­ment. (Goodnight ITV!) Use the space for more listings and previews, then, if you must. But recog­nise that the world has moved on.

I trust the bearing of this on the topic of this blog is pretty clear, even though I’ve never com­mented on broad­cast TV. The role of ‘official opinion former’ seems, at least for the time being, to be some­thing of an ana­chronism as almost every member of the audience is able to create a platform for their own opinions and to chal­lenge those of others. Despite the fact that’s it’s a dis­graceful Tory rag, the Daily Mail has actually done more than many tra­di­tional media owners in breaking down barriers between journ­al­ists and audience. Already, readers can comment on any story, even the front page head­lines. Their recog­ni­tion of a new reality when it comes to op/​ed — that I and other readers feel as qual­i­fied to dive into the dis­cus­sion as a seasoned hack. Editors become mod­er­ators and talent scouts as that dis­cus­sion evolves.

Earlier this month, Jeff Jarvis noted that Guardian Online has taken similar steps with its arts and enter­tain­ment coverage, throwing its colum­nists into a con­ver­sa­tion with other critics — the former audience. (More: another paper bins its critics)

Share this post:

Possibly related:

• The Future of Newspapers
• Evil of Digg Overestimated
• The Late Final