My reading of Thomas E. Patterson’s Informing the News: The Need for Knowledge-Based Journalism (Vintage Books, 2013) sparked this series of posts from early 2014. I extrapolated from his analysis of the current state of journalism, journalism education, and the industries that distribute journalism through the print, broadcast, and internet platforms, to apply his ideas to the state of criticism, and expand on them.
The links below will take you to my responses, the most recent first. I suggest starting with the earliest post and working your way forward from there.
- Toward Knowledge-Based Criticism 5 (February 13, 2014): In which I except some educators from my critique, while concluding that nothing suggests any likelihood of “knowledge-based” critics of any medium emerging today, much less finding homes in major media platforms.
- Toward Knowledge-Based Criticism 4 (January 30, 2014): In which I point to the necessary non-academic components of the critic’s background, while expressing skepticism about the post-secondary educational environment as a seedbed for critics.
- Toward Knowledge-Based Criticism 3 (January 23, 2014): In which I weigh the value-added aspect of formal education while acknowledging that many noted critics never formally studied the media about which they have written.
- Toward Knowledge-Based Criticism 2 (January 16, 2014): In which I discuss the contrast between “hive mind,” which has produced no criticism of note in any medium, and the independent opinionating of the individual critic.
- Toward Knowledge-Based Criticism 1 (January 9, 2014): In which I propose Patterson’s critique as counterpoint to Natalie Arriola’s challenge, “What makes the opinion of a certain highly informed person more valid than that of someone who is not informed?”
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A. D. Coleman, Critical Focus, 1995
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