The LA Times discusses"Reporting the Arts II," a study conducted for Columbia University's National Arts Journalism Program and released Saturday at a conference of newspaper editors in New Orleans. The report looked at arts journalism in 13 American cities in October 2003 and compared the findings with a similar analysis that had been done five years earlier.

The findings: "In all the cities our researchers visited, they found evidence of growing vitality in the arts. But when it comes to journalism, the opposite is true."

DC was not included in this study, but doesn't this paragraph describe the Washington Post's coverage:

"Our findings reveal an alarming trend: During the last five years, none of the papers we looked at increased the amount of their arts criticism and reporting. Editors at many dailies are filling smaller news holes with more and therefore shorter stories. Pieces on "high" arts, as well as those with hard reporting about cultural institutions, continue to take a backseat to soft-focus features on the latest movie star, CD or rock concert... Now many art sections have become viewer guides, devoting the bulk of their efforts to calendars, the daily TV grid and tiny thumbnail reviews."

In DC, under the leadership of its Arts Editor Leonard Roberge, the Washington City Paper continues to take over the void created by the Post's tiny visual arts coverage. This trend is apparently also common in other cities, as the piece discusses that:

"The alternative press, once derided by mainline news outlets, has also proved so successful at covering local arts events that media giants such as Tribune Co. and Gannett have started publications that mimic those brash competitors."

And the article closes with a key prediction:

"The greatest hope of quality arts journalism is the Internet. By going online, a reader can gain access to what seems like the work of every news organization and blogger on the planet. But there's a problem with the Web: The information is there, but you have to go looking for it. Articles and ideas are not placed at the reader's front door or local newsstand. The Internet cannot form the kind of connective tissue for our cultural life that newspapers offer.

We don't know where the talented cultural writers of tomorrow will come from and what type of art they will champion. They may choose to ply their trade outside newspapers, feeling too hemmed in by old routines and space constraints."

You can order the actual report here.

Thanks AJ!