Dealing with the WaPo

Today is the day that the Post is supposed to cover our area galleries in the Style section. And yet there's nothing. You better get used to it.

As reported here, the Style section has decided to cut its "Galleries" column to twice a month, rather than every Thursday.

And yet (and these are the kind of things that make no sense to me), there's a pretty good piece by a freelancer named Andy Grundberg on Six Centuries of Prints and Drawings: Recent Acquisitions at the National Gallery of Art. Grundberg is the Chairman of the Photo Department at the Corcoran and certainly quite qualified to augment either the museum or gallery review scene at the Post.

So the Post has decided to reduce their already measly gallery coverage in half because one of its two gallery art critic freelancers has quit; rather than just seek the services of another freelancer or give the assignment to people already in their freelance art stables, such as Grundberg apparently is!

Oh yeah... there's also piece in Arts Beat about art by prisoners on exhibit at a Lutheran Church somewhere.

Makes my head hurt.

What can our visual arts community do? It is so obvious that we're dealing with a mindset at the newspaper that is not very concerned with our area's galleries, artists and other visual art spaces that do not happen to be large museums. At least not in the same coverage proportions to what the Post already does for theater, music, books, TV, etc.

Their cultural apathy seems strictly dedicated to our area's galleries and artists.

I am told that the WaPo takes every letter received on an issue and multiplies it by 1500 readers who feel the same way, but who do not take the time and effort to write an old-fashioned letter.

So if you feel (like I do) that it is completely unacceptable for the Washington Post to only publish the "Galleries" column twice a month, even on a temporary basis (can you imagine the uproar if they decided to review only two movies a month? Or two restaurants? Or two theatre plays? Or two concerts? Or two books? D'ya get the point!!!)... then write the paper's editor a letter (a proper letter, not an email; and please be respectful, intelligent and civil) and let him know:

Leonard Downie
Editor
Washington Post
1150 15th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20071

Here is an example of a letter that I wrote to the Post's editor in 1999 bitching about their galleries' measly coverage and making some suggestions (one of them - the mini reviews - was eventually implemented and O'Sullivan has drastically improved gallery coverage in his Weekend On Exhibit column) to improve their coverage. Sad to think that the coverage back then was twice of what it is now (both the "Galleries" and the "Arts Beat" columns used to be published every Thursday back then)!