Newspaper Rock Critics Face the Music on Ageism

Newspaper Rock Critics Face the Music on Ageism

By Shawn Moynihan

Published: April 12, 2004 12:01 AM EST

NEW YORK "If it's too loud, you're too old," the old rock 'n' roll saying goes — but Larry Nager says it wasn't high decibels that got him fired from The Cincinnati Enquirer.

For eight years, until recently, Nager served as the Enquirer's music critic, bringing to the job a thorough knowledge of blues, rock, R&B, and bluegrass, among other genres. He won several awards for his reporting, and created and produced the paper's Pop Music Awards (the Cammys), an annual event that honors/features local musicians and raises thousands of dollars for music scholarships.

Yet the Enquirer fired Nager on Jan. 9, claiming that he was not aggressive enough in his reporting. But he feels there was a different reason. "My 50th birthday was my expiration date," Nager says, claiming his firing was pure ageism on the newspaper's part. "I have a reputation as a good reporter. To say all of a sudden that I can't do this job, is outrageous. ... I was railroaded."

Nager is now suing the Enquirer, saying he was forced out because of his age, his gender and in retaliation for protesting the reassignment of longtime TV/radio critic John Kiesewetter to a suburban news beat. In his lawsuit, Nager asks for his job back, and compensatory/punitive damages.

Asked to respond to Nager's allegations, Enquirer Editor Tom Callinan said he was unable to comment, due to legal reasons.

Time will tell if Nager is reinstated at the Enquirer, but his case raises several questions. For one, at what time should aging newspaper music critics hang it up? And are too many newspapers going overboard in "skewing young" these days?

One critic for a daily paper who spoke with E&P referred to the "ethnic cleansing of senior people" in newspaper arts sections, while another simply said, "We definitely face demographic pressures here."

Down to the minors

"I never for a second thought I would be terminated, I produced in a variety of ways for so many years," Nager says, mentioning a feature he was assigned to write last August about Cincinnati native Nick Lachey and his wife Jessica Simpson. Nager would have you believe he had no problem with covering young pop stars.

The Enquirer, Nager claims, deemed him expendable because he didn't fit the paper's profile of someone who should be reporting on the Britneys and Justins of the music world. Nager accuses the Enquirer — and many other newspapers — of targeting an 18-34 female demographic, a move he calls "a reaction to the whole MTV-ing of our society ... newspapers are trying belatedly to be 'with it.'"

Another experienced writer who knows a thing or two about being pulled off the music beat after years of service is Joel Selvin, now senior pop music critic for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Selvin received his own professional wake-up call in February of 2002, from new editors assigned to the arts and features department. After more than 30 years writing about music for the Chronicle, Selvin found himself stripped of his music-critic title and reassigned to the position of staff writer. At the time, "I felt it was an attempt to humiliate me and make me want to leave entirely," he says.

Extensive renegotiations with the paper's management — the details of which Selvin could not discuss — followed before his title was restored. Today, he says, "I'm doing the best work of my career. I'm getting more encouragement than I ever had."

Nager and Selvin's stories echo a similar battle fought by Washington Post pop music critic Richard Harrington, who in August 2000 settled an age-discrimination lawsuit against the newspaper. Harrington, then 53, was demoted in February of 2000 to part-time work when his critic's job with the paper's "Style" section was given to a writer 17 years his junior. Harrington is currently still a music critic with the Post.

Forever ... young?

No one disputes that newspapers today appear bent on gaining younger readers, either in their main products or in their stand-alone spinoffs. But Philadelphia Inquirer music critic Tom Moon, 43, observes that newspapers can "get a little too caught up in target audiences, rather than justifying it on a critical level."

Steve Morse, senior pop music critic for The Boston Globe, agrees there's a concerted effort by newspapers to appeal to "at-risk" readers, an umbrella term for young people weaned on TV and the Internet. There is, he says, "a general concern, if not panic, to entice these kids to read a daily newspaper."

Morse, 55, who has covered the beat for decades, doesn't understand why age is even a question when writing about music. "Movie critics don't go through this type of ageism, so I don't understand why music critics go through it," he says. But "if there does come a time when you think all teen music is bad, or all hip-hop is bad, and you're just sitting there listening to old Hendrix albums, then you should get out."

Jim Derogatis, 39, pop music critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, insists that it's not age, but the "fire in your belly" to get the real story that music critics face: "You could find yourself sitting at Soldier Field in the heat, in the middle of the summer, watching N'Sync and everyone there seems to be having a good time but you ... and you and the one other critic who's there are both sitting there saying, 'Why am I here?'"

Give the people what they want

Although the pop audience continues to slant female these days, most music critics are still male. One exception is Evelyn McDonnell, pop music critic for The Miami Herald, who agrees that when it comes to being a newspaper music critic in 2004, it's not about gender or age: "It's about your enthusiasm for the job."

But when asked if the pressure is on for newspaper music writers these days to cater to a young, female crowd, the 39-year-old McDonnell frankly responds, "Yes. Explicitly. Beyond a doubt. ... I don't mind it at all," she adds. "If you like pop music, you should be interested in what's happening. If not, you shouldn't be doing the job."

John Soeder, 36, pop music critic for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, concurs. "I always summarize it as, 'Open ears, open mind,'" he says. Being young, Soeder adds, has nothing to do with knowing what a younger audience wants: "I feel really strongly that no age group, no demographic, has the market cornered on 'hip'. You could be a 60-year-old critic and still be more with it than a 25-year-old."

Not every critic agrees that newspapers have young females in their crosshairs. "I don't necessarily think it's true that newspapers are skewing younger in their music coverage," says Neil Strauss, 32, a New York Times music critic who resigned last month (see related story, below). "That said, however, I think that newspapers are paying more attention to their pop culture coverage than they used to," Strauss adds. "There's pressure to be competitive, and not just with other newspapers but also everything from the Billboard charts to television news media, to entertainment magazines."

USA Today Music Critic Steve Jones, 47, believes there's no shame in looking to younger readers. "I think they have to," he says, noting that hip-hop and teen pop are the dominant forces in the music marketplace at the moment. Regardless of your own taste, he adds, critics often "have to deal with the reality that the things that are making news are younger-leaning things."

Hope I die before I get old

While most music critics want to roll with the trends and hang on to their beat indefinitely, and others get reassigned against their will, some aim to quit while they're ahead.

"I know the whole mania to appeal to young people, and it's pretty embarrassing sometimes," says Roger Catlin, who served as The Hartford (Conn.) Courant's music critic from 1988-2002. He then became the paper's TV critic. Back in his days of covering music full-time, he recalls, "I'd go to pop concerts and then go on and on about lip-synching, but it doesn't matter to a young audience," he says. "I began to think I'm not serving anyone by pointing that out, because no one seems to care."

Now, Catlin, 49, writes mostly about TV. It's a gig he enjoys, and a step he felt was an inevitable step for a critic who wasn't particularly moved by the new sounds anymore.

"I didn't want to wait until I was pressured to move out," Catlin says. "It's better to make your own choice."

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Shawn Moynihan (smoynihan@editorandpublisher.com) is managing editor for E&P.