Today's Style section in the Post has the kind of coverage that one wishes the paper would give the visual arts on their "Galleries/Art News focus" day (Thursdays).

Wednesday is "Pop Music" focus day in the Style section, and there are eight separate columns or reviews by seven different writers (plus three different theatre reviews although Tuesdays is "theatre focus day" not today).

So at least for music and theatre, Style has several different critics and writers who provide us with fairly good coverage, offering a widely ranging set of reviews and opinions - dealing with both national level artists and Washington area artists and venues. Many of these Post writers are "contract" writers (freelance), allowing the Post to hire (and fire them) fairly easily I assume, while saving on having to provide 401K's and medical insurance, etc.

Nonetheless, I applaud the Post's interest in helping to cover our area's rich musical and theatrical scene. It certainly deserves the coverage given.

But on Thursdays - "Galleries and Art News focus day" - Why then only one column on "Galleries" by only one contract writer? And the Arts Beat column, which is published twice a month on Thursdays, often covers the entire spectrum of the "arts" - it is not just a visual arts column by far.

It's not fair to Jessica Dawson, who has to spread her single column all over the region, sometimes as far as Baltimore and often to embassies, and it's not fair to the many, many area galleries, who must all compete for the ear of just one Style critic, it's not fair to the many area artists and other good exhibitions which get ignored because of lack of coverage, and most of all, it's not fair to the readers of Style who must all just read only one critical voice and perspective when it comes to our area's art galleries and who often are also unaware of important exhibitions that go uncovered due to lack of print space allowed by Style to the visual arts on "Galleries" day.

In fact, I am willing to bet that tomorrow's paper, on their assigned "Galleries/Art News" focus day, will have more theatre and music reviews than galleries reviews.