Thursday, January 22, 2015

Washington Post's continuing the downward path

One day I will tell the story of how the Washington Post's anemic presence in the area's visual arts essentially entered Zombie-land during the disastrous years that Eugene Robinson was the Style Section editor... Part of me understands the financial reasoning behind this latest decision... but here's another nail in the coffin for the WaPo's "if you don't get it" attitude towards our area's galleries:
From: "Orndorff, Amy" <Amy.Orndorff@washpost.com>
Date: January 22, 2015 at 5:38:38 PM EST
To: "Orndorff, Amy" <Amy.Orndorff@washpost.com>
Subject: Changes to the Weekend section
Hi all,

I wanted to reach out to everyone before our section hits doorsteps tomorrow and let you all know about significant changes to the listings.

This was a free service for many years and we loved doing it, but for various reasons we are having to make significant changes to the way we do it. We have to cut newsprint due to rising costs, and we see the most value for our readers in the stories that we do.

With that in mind we are eliminating the following lists: Et cetera, For Families, Galleries and Art Spaces.

In the coming weeks we will be dramatically reducing the rest of the lists -- Nightclubs, Concerts, Museums, Theater and Film. For those of you with venues that have multiple kinds of events, you will be seeing more emails from me soon about what is going to happen next.

Anything already submitted for the Style and Arts Guide will be printed and/or published online.

Thank you,
Amy