A few days ago Terry Mattingly, an experienced religion reporter, was complaining that media doesn’t want to know anything about religion. The NYTimes recently advertised for a religion writer who had absolutely no connection or knowledge about religion.
Today Ted Gioia, an experienced music writer, complains about the EXACT OPPOSITE situation. He says music critics are too closely involved with their favorite performers. USAToday is hiring a Beyonce writer and a Taylor Swift writer. Some critics who were also musicians reviewed pieces they had produced or performed. One critic who was a composer got lots of free play of his works from orchestras who wanted to stay on his good side.
Maybe the two fields should trade biases for a while! Newspapers would only hire preachers and cult leaders to write about religion, and newspapers would only hire deaf people to write about music. The latter might work well, since most music writing is really about the business, not the sound.
Polistra's Mill 