Washington Post to cut in half its gallery coverage

Today I called the Style desk at the WaPo and discovered that the Washington Post intends to reduce their already measly gallery coverage to only twice a month. This is a reduction from their one weekly column: "Galleries," which is published on most Thursdays, a day which according to the Style section's banner, is supposed to be a day focused on "Galleries and Art News."

Yeah...

"Galleries" has been written for the last few years by freelance writer Jessica Dawson (that's right... Jessica is not an employee of the Post, but a freelancer assigned that column). The task of writing a weekly column to review area shows is not an easy one, and it takes a lot of time, effort and driving around to see a lot of gallery shows in order to pick one or two a week. So Jessica wanted some time off, and thus the Post hired Glenn Dixon a few weeks ago.

The idea was for Jessica and Glenn to share the column and each write a review every two weeks and thus cover the gallery scene with a review a week. Measly coverage in comparison to the Post's excellent and in-depth coverage of our area's theater, music, clubs, dance and other performace art... but better than nothing.

But then something happened, and Dixon and the Post had a dispute and Dixon quit.

And now, someone at the Post has made the decision to cut down the column to just twice a month. I don't know if this is a temporary decision or not. I have emailed Gene Robinson (editor of Style) and Chip Crews (temporary Arts Editor while John Pancake, the Post's Arts Editor, is away on a teaching gig).

I am hoping that this is a temporary situation while the Post finds another freelancer to augment Dawson's biweekly coverage. I cannot, even in my darkest Post-bitching mood, fathom that the Post's editor would think that it is OK to write two columns a month to cover the nearly 100 new visual art shows that our area's galleries and artists offer each month.

Let's keep our collective fingers crossed. More on this issue as I find out more.

UPDATE: Chip Crews (who is the Post's acting Arts Editor) tells me that the decision about the "Galleries" column "may change at some point but there's no timetable. Our arts editor, John Pancake, is on sabbatical until mid-January, and it's highly unlikely any permanent action will be taken before then." I volunteered my services, but it was declined until Pancake returns to make a decision.