The late-summer Milwaukee Journal Sentinel cuts will reduce coverage generally, but the biggest blow will hit arts and entertainment groups. A city long celebrated for its arts scene may see far less celebration in print.
Of the 71 journalists to take buyouts or be laid off – the paper’s largest cut in the last two years – a quintet of entertainment writers were among the highest-profile departures: music and dance critic Tom Strini, theater critic Damien Jaques, pop and rock music writer Dave Tianen, book editor Geeta Sharma-Jensenand TV/radio columnist Tim Cuprisin.
Sharma-Jensen has agreed to freelance for the paper. But within days, Strini took a spot at ThirdCoastDigest.com,the online successor to shuttered print magazine Vital Source. Meanwhile, OnMilwaukee.com will run Cuprisin’s daily reports starting Oct. 1; a weekly segment for Time Warner Cable’s On Demand Channel 1111 is also part of that deal. Jaques will write for OMC, too.
Many arts groups worry about the changes. “It’s certainly a concern. There seems to be an overall contraction in coverage,” says Dennis Buehler, Milwaukee Ballet’s executive director.
“I feel like I had the wind knocked out of me,” Wild Space Dance Company artistic director Deb Loewen says of learning about Strini’s exit.
JSeditors have had to reassure arts groups. “We’ve been in close contact with Journal Sentinel folks,” says Mark Hanson, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra’s executive director. “At this time, we don’t have any concern about the coverage.”
The paper’s arts coverage has been shrinking for many years, but was still the key way Milwaukeeans learned about concerts and shows. “The review in the Journal Sentinel still, by far, had the biggest effect on ticket sales – particularly if it was a negative review,” notes Next Act Theatre’s producing artistic director, David Cecsarini.
Other print outlets seem unlikely to pick up the baton, although Dave Luhrssen, Shepherd Express arts editor, says the alt-weekly is adding a dance critic “to fill the gap” left at the JS.
Strini and Jaques both say the financially troubled newspaper did not deliberately target the culture desk to cut costs. (It’s worth noting, though, that in sports, the only major cuts came to the copy desk and clerks who compile daily statistics.)
“It’s totally coincidental,” Strini tells Pressroom. Assistant managing editor Jill Williams assured him he wouldn’t have been laid off, Strini says.
The pattern, Jaques and others say, simply reflects the section’s demographics. All five journalists had at least 20 years’ tenure, and got a bonus for 15-year-plus veterans that added 10 weeks of pay to the base severance (two weeks of pay per year of service). “Us old guys got the best deal,” says Jaques, and would have been “crazy” to turn it down.
That deal provides a short-term cushion that may have helped allow OnMilwaukee and ThirdCoast, both lean operations, to take on Strini, Cuprisin and Jaques. Strini began his gig at ThirdCoast– owned by Publisher Jon Anne Willow, along with arts philanthropist Chris Abele – with no paycheck. But he hopes for an eventual salary, ownership stake, or cut of ad revenues.
Increasingly arts coverage is gravitating to the Web. The rising profile of JS art and architecture critic Mary Louise Schumacher is a case in point. Schumacher has done less print and more Web writing than past JScritics, building a multimedia brand through her blog and regular video posts. In July, she won a journalism award for online innovation, beating out, the paper pointedly noted, “some of the largest newspapers in the country, including the Chicago Tribune, Washington Post … and Los Angeles Times.”
More proof of the Internet’s impact came from the summer’s big arts controversy at the Skylight Opera Theatre. It began with the firing of artistic director Bill Theisen and four others, was highlighted by mass meetings at Catalano Square, and culminated in the stunning turnabout resignations of Skylight Board President Suzanne Hefty and, eventually, managing director Eric Dillner. The story largely played out on the Internet, as Skylight fans and Theisen supporters turned to Facebookand Twitter feeds to rally support and keep up on the news. The most important ongoing coverage was at tuesdaysblog.com by former Milwaukee actor Tony Clements, who is now based in New York City.
But can online networking replace the high penetration of Milwaukee’s daily newspaper? Loewen is dubious. Yet she, along with everyone else, is scrambling to exploit the Internet.
“The ballet has tried to take a global view on how we keep our message in online and social media,” says Buehler. And last year, Next Act Theatre set up a computer station in its Off-Broadway Theatre lobby to get audience comments. The response has been slow, Cecsarini admits. “This year we are going to more actively solicit commentary.”
With the decline of print coverage, he says, the challenge is clear. “We will find ourselves much more taking charge of our own story.”
