Consolidation trend is sweeping the realm of alt weeklies, with the New Times chain’s pooling of reviewers and its syndication of their reviews. Freelance reviewers whose bylines have been regularly seen in film sections and are expected and respected by local readers, are receiving few or no assignments from New York-based New Times management.Not that I'm bitter or anything.
(Also, I did not know this org existed)
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Personally, I blame Ronald Reagan. He made popular again the notion that the market was the best determinant of value and the corporations were the best arbiters of how a market was performing. So if the market needs to reflect only that which the corporations are willing to provide it, so be it.
Thus, crap "alt-weekly" companies like New Times apply the same model to every paper in its chain -- and that includes syndicating its reviews, because a critic in New York speaks to people in Los Angeles just as well as they do to those in New York or any part of the company. Cut costs by cutting service, because, hey, aren't we all the same? Isn't that the essence of market capitalism?
What's to be bitter about that?
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