D Nuts || November 30, 2007
Remember when I said I was gonna post my take on the music editor changeover at the Dallas Observer? That happened two weeks ago, and in the time since the news broke, it seems like everything that needed to be said has come out of the woodwork in one way or another. If you care, my favorite piece in the interim was by former DO music editor Zac Crain over at his (relatively) new FrontBurner digs--even though the bastard ranked me out of the fray.
But my interest became re-piqued when I saw Jonanna Widner's own farewell at bocatinta.com. I sympathize with the punch in the gut she felt once she got the bad news from up high--I had roughly two hours to compose my own farewell column, and corporate made sure she didn't get a similar window of opportunity. But even in her Internet swan song, Jonanna blows her local music responsibilities. This "proper" farewell eschews the North Texas music scene altogether to fawn over a personal favorite and, sadly, make her the star of the story. Some people appreciate this in their music criticism; local scenes don't exist without the personal stories that compel us to become music hounds, I suppose.
But she can't help but speak condescendingly--"Music isn’t even entirely about what’s “good” or what’s “bad” (OK, now the Denton bloggers heads have officially exploded)," she writes. Forget that her point doesn't even make sense (uh, have you heard some of the loud, crazy noise coming out of Denton house parties?). Rather, she makes a concerted effort in her goodbye to remind us that, in spite of her "thank you" and "appreciate the opportunity" sentences, the message conveyed is that she despised her duties as spokesperson for a music scene.
But that doesn't mean her goodbye will change much for North Texas music. The Observer's reputation has a long way to go if it's to ever reemerge as a reliable, trusted source for area music info. Widner's first months of stumbling and learning, which were hugely forgivable at the time, gave way to her final run of troubled material. Local coverage became ever more narrow, as Widner all but bailed on local genres (hip-hop and hard rock, for starters), and the local stuff that wasn't bumped by atrocious, syndicated features barely talked about the music at all. Again, music articles that go beyond the music can work. But in Jonanna's downward spiral, those few "not quite music" successes were drowned out by unprecedented failures.
A scapegoat for the corporate master plan.
Village Voice Media made a concentrated, syndicate-wide effort last year to pool its arts sections together and unify them, assumedly to attract national advertisers. After all, it's easier to pitch 17 papers' worth of ads to national clients like Heineken when you can assure them that their ad will reach the exact same target audience in every paper. National consolidation is one way VVM thought it could survive this post-Internet drop in newspaper readership, and the retail side of the company loved it--what we lose to Craigslist and other Internet classifieds, we'll make up for by selling ourselves to corporate America as the perfect national platform for reaching those savvy 18-35s. But this business model failed to give the "savvy" target market any credit.
Yet Jonanna was soundly punished for following the company line, it appears. So what the hell do these VVM people want? Seems like that'll be a mystery for another month or so, as the music editor search continues. Time will tell who takes the job next--people assume it'll be another VVM employee, but I think word has spread about the past couple of years of Dallas music editors. And in spite of the significant drop in rep, the Observer is honestly in an interesting spot right now--not as utterly far removed from quality as, say, local radio stations, which means a new music editor (or, shit, editors) with a mix of leadership, genre-agnosticism and ear for quality could reinstate the section's long-held rep. But ultimately, the past year of piss trailing down the Maple Ave. office entryway has marked VVM's territory. Who dares swim up that channel? -SM
But my interest became re-piqued when I saw Jonanna Widner's own farewell at bocatinta.com. I sympathize with the punch in the gut she felt once she got the bad news from up high--I had roughly two hours to compose my own farewell column, and corporate made sure she didn't get a similar window of opportunity. But even in her Internet swan song, Jonanna blows her local music responsibilities. This "proper" farewell eschews the North Texas music scene altogether to fawn over a personal favorite and, sadly, make her the star of the story. Some people appreciate this in their music criticism; local scenes don't exist without the personal stories that compel us to become music hounds, I suppose.
But she can't help but speak condescendingly--"Music isn’t even entirely about what’s “good” or what’s “bad” (OK, now the Denton bloggers heads have officially exploded)," she writes. Forget that her point doesn't even make sense (uh, have you heard some of the loud, crazy noise coming out of Denton house parties?). Rather, she makes a concerted effort in her goodbye to remind us that, in spite of her "thank you" and "appreciate the opportunity" sentences, the message conveyed is that she despised her duties as spokesperson for a music scene.
But that doesn't mean her goodbye will change much for North Texas music. The Observer's reputation has a long way to go if it's to ever reemerge as a reliable, trusted source for area music info. Widner's first months of stumbling and learning, which were hugely forgivable at the time, gave way to her final run of troubled material. Local coverage became ever more narrow, as Widner all but bailed on local genres (hip-hop and hard rock, for starters), and the local stuff that wasn't bumped by atrocious, syndicated features barely talked about the music at all. Again, music articles that go beyond the music can work. But in Jonanna's downward spiral, those few "not quite music" successes were drowned out by unprecedented failures.
A scapegoat for the corporate master plan.
Village Voice Media made a concentrated, syndicate-wide effort last year to pool its arts sections together and unify them, assumedly to attract national advertisers. After all, it's easier to pitch 17 papers' worth of ads to national clients like Heineken when you can assure them that their ad will reach the exact same target audience in every paper. National consolidation is one way VVM thought it could survive this post-Internet drop in newspaper readership, and the retail side of the company loved it--what we lose to Craigslist and other Internet classifieds, we'll make up for by selling ourselves to corporate America as the perfect national platform for reaching those savvy 18-35s. But this business model failed to give the "savvy" target market any credit.
Yet Jonanna was soundly punished for following the company line, it appears. So what the hell do these VVM people want? Seems like that'll be a mystery for another month or so, as the music editor search continues. Time will tell who takes the job next--people assume it'll be another VVM employee, but I think word has spread about the past couple of years of Dallas music editors. And in spite of the significant drop in rep, the Observer is honestly in an interesting spot right now--not as utterly far removed from quality as, say, local radio stations, which means a new music editor (or, shit, editors) with a mix of leadership, genre-agnosticism and ear for quality could reinstate the section's long-held rep. But ultimately, the past year of piss trailing down the Maple Ave. office entryway has marked VVM's territory. Who dares swim up that channel? -SM
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