When I put the party leaders through their pop-culture paces ahead of this week’s provincial election, I wasn’t surprised that the resulting piece would be well-read.
What did surprise me was some readers’ surprise at the idea that the kinds of culture someone engages with — or doesn’t — might be somehow insightful and revealing. (Literally, someone said to me, “This is surprisingly insightful.”)
Is it? As someone who has reported and opined on culture for 17 years, I believe arts and culture are what make life worth living. Our comfort watches, our first concerts, our karaoke go-tos, our “guilty pleasures” (though, I believe in no guilt, only pleasure), the songs that hype us up, the memes that make us laugh — all of these things that make us who we are and help us relate to each other.
Gannett, the United States’ biggest newspaper chain, is looking for a beat reporter to cover Taylor Swift. (Chris Pizzello / Associated Press files)
I love engaging with art itself, be it television, books, movies, music, visual art, dance, comic books, podcasts, memes and TikTok videos (also art!), but I also love discussing and debating it — and, in turn, consuming discussions and debates about it. From fluffy, irreverent recaps to long thinky analysis, I’m here for all of it.
Because that, my friends, is what creates culture.
It’s a deeply weird time in arts journalism. Last week, Entertainment Tonight Canada was cancelled after 18 seasons. Arts coverage in traditional print media has been steadily shrinking. Alternative weeklies, once the lifeblood of cities, are pretty much extinct. Even the glossy music magazines are going online only. Local arts coverage is being crowded out by clickbaity celeb gossip.
But then you have Gannett, the United States’ biggest newspaper chain, looking for two very specific beat reporters: one to cover Taylor Swift and the other to cover Beyoncé. Many people online bristled about these postings, especially at a time when Gannett is bleeding staff at its 200 local dailies.
And yes, one could make the argument that these pop stars are two of the most famous women in the world. Do they need hefty newsroom resources put behind them when there’s no one to cover city hall? Fair enough.
Still, I’m not entirely convinced that a Taylor Swift reporter or a Beyoncé reporter is necessarily a death knell for music journalism or journalism more broadly, especially if the successful candidates are agnostic and don’t identify as either a Swiftie or a member of the Beyhive. Per the Wall Street Journal, the September postings have attracted nearly 1,000 applicants, which include Emmy Award-winning journalists and TikTok influencers.
This move, to my mind, shows a willingness to throw reporting resources behind not just art, but culture. Swift and Beyoncé make music, yes, but they also are cultural forces. Being able to engage with them as the rich texts they are is, in many ways, a culture-writing dream job.
I don’t see a huge difference between hiring someone to write recaps of one specific TV show — a veritable digital media cottage industry — and hiring a reporter to cover one specific icon.
The response to these job postings was telling, especially people who framed them as in direct opposition to “serious news,” when important, insightful, revealing and entertaining stories appear in every section of a newspaper.
And who knows? Maybe Taylor Swift can do for newspapers what she’s done for the Kansas City Chiefs.
Jen Zoratti
Columnist
Jen Zoratti is a Winnipeg Free Press columnist and author of the newsletter, NEXT, a weekly look towards a post-pandemic future.
