Why does everyone jump on NYTimes' balls all the time?

I guess what i'm saying is: NEW SOURCES PLEASE!

Nothing personal against anybody who started a "OMG look at this article in NY Times" thread at all. I'm just completely burned out on anything that printed in, made in, or centers around NYC, and could live without anything related to NYC for the next five years. (Yeah it's hyperbole... there will still be good bands I'll listen to from NYC, and the pizza will still be good.. but, FFS already)

Yes, Gear, I'm totally suggesting the Florida panhandle. Exactly. We all know high hurricane landfall frequency brings out the best art.

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It's the writer-as-punching-bag thing that's getting tiring. And NYC is the same old boring blood-stained playground for it.

I'm guessing -- HOPING -- that more talk about articles from a variety of papers will prevent the "hot seat" dynamic from poisoning threads like all the NY Times pieces, because -- true -- not enough people are mentioning pieces from other papers.

i'm a feature writer and music columnist for this paper. it's nothing special, but it's the largest daily in northern new england and it gives me a paycheck and the opportunity to write everyday. you want to talk about dumbing it down for an audience that doesn't know anything? welcome to my life. i'd kill to write in NYC or philly or seattle or anywhere with more than, say, 10 viable venues within a 100-mile radius. san diva gyna, would you like to hear about the goings on in bangor, maine? read rockin' out every friday. oh boy. you don't know the universe of lameness i inhabit. i am the alternative weekly here, and it is not easy to work that out in 20 inches or less.

though that's unfair, cause i do enjoy writing about my small town scene, and there are a lot of nice people and even some good musicians around. but, i'm just saying...

anyway, yeah, the washington post has great arts coverage, and so does the miami herald and the hartford courant. i hardly ever read any west coast papers, so i'm not as familiar.

I've picked on the LA Times and I'm a suscriber. We always want the newspaper to be better. And often it is.

And here I took a chainsaw to TIME for a terror scare story over the weekend, and lots paid attention:

http://www.dickdestiny.com/blog/2006/06/mubtakkar-of-death-accurate-assessment.html

So, you know, there's equal opportunity persecution. They're all big, they can take it.

As a longtime NY'er and loyal reader of the Times and Village Voice before I moved out east I can nevertheless understand Donut's point, the cultural supremacy or whatever you want to call it of the New York Times can be infuriating. And like Scott I read lots of printed-press stuff online so let's link/post/discus MORE newspapers articles from all over. For instance that new critic at the LA Times must be tearing shit up in the wake of Robt Hillburn right? Somebody e-mailed me a recent LAT thing on Amerikan Idol that revolved around (shudders) rockism...that's good for a 500+post thread AT LEAST.

But you know there is something really odd going on in the New York Times' arts/culture coverage these last couple years. To my jaundiced eyes the ol' grey mare is trying to be "hep" or something to an unprecedented degree, young critics like Kelefa have been untethered and left to roam the landscape. I wish he'd read a couple books about country music though, learning a little bit of this tradition-obsessed music's history wouldn't hurt but I digress.

I didn't have a big problem with the bulk of that Freak Folk article, but the "billboard graf" at the beginning about the dawning of "nothing less than the new AGE OF AQUARIUS" was (unintenionally? ironically?) hilarious and bizarre, totally reads like USA Today.

WE'RE NOT YOUR PARENTS NEW YORK TIMES

I'd link to local music writers but I haven't read anything great or horrible recently. I think with papers that I consider to be "of the record" I have higher expectations and am more likely to refute them because they carry higher credibility by default.

-- San Diva Gyna (and a Masala DOsaNUT on the side) (dot@dot.dot), June 19th, 2006 9:16 PM.

All joking aside (seriously!), this actually turned on the lights for me. I mean, I expect anything I read in the LA Times Calendar section to be painfully obtuse and/or late to the party.

But right or wrong when I open a NY (i.e. Real) Times I still have expectations. Hence the jumping on the balls.

The music writing in LA Weekly, on the other hand, is by and large not worth talking about because it's just awful. (Their entire music section, in fact - their focus is 95% on live shows, blah blah blah.)

I'm with reogermexico - right or wrong I EXPECT more from the NYT; its rep as the paper of record is not easily changed.

i also read the daily howler almost every day

Then you're part of the problem! I actually miss the education stuff. But now he's back to Gore and all's dandy like Al. :^)

Seriously. The SunnO)))/FF pieces weren't that bad but the Klosterman article was absolute garbage. Stunningly off-base.

The music writing in LA Weekly, on the other hand, is by and large not worth talking about because it's just awful. (Their entire music section, in fact - their focus is 95% on live shows, blah blah blah.)

Barf-worthy. Maybe because the LA music scene can also be pretty boring. Witness their feature on Murs this week (and I'm one of the few people who likes Murs!)

Yeah, so I'm not enough of a cheerleader for you? So sorry. Daily Howler is good at walking the pundits back over their vain fictions through astute use of Lex-Nex. He has a real talent for it, particularly dealing with the repetitive myths concocted to stuff Al Gore. He was also great at dealing with the first NYT public ombudsman, Okrent, who was repeatedly and fairly dubbed a "fop." A great putdown! But it's not a philosopher's stone.

So, it's not jumping on the Times, it's just jumping on some particularly egregiously unfortunate reviews that happen to be available becuase the Times prints them & we read 'em.

I go to the Chicago Reader for alternate coverage--the two local freebies here are awful. One local bright spot is the local scene coverage in Gimme Danger!. He mostly covers local bands and his harshest critics include Thom Jurek and Kyle Norris.

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