Thursday, September 9, 2010
Books / Media Wall Street Journal to Challenge Times with New Book Review Section
Posted by Mark Asch on Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 1:57 PM
This is, of course, excellent news for everybody who likes book reviews, which, as a citizen of a democracy, surely includes you. The section will be edited by Robert Messenger, formerly of the Atlantic and the Weekly Standard—so I guess he's even more conservative than Sam Tanenhaus? I guess female authors and authors of color now have another major literary arbiter to be ignored by—as well as the New York Sun, the shuttered daily from whose staff pool the Journal is drawing many of its new staffers.
The Sun was a destined-to-be-short-lived conservative rag, but it had a number of intelligent people writing very literate arts coverage—including a number of film critics who've written for the L. If Murdoch wants to appeal to readers—and challenge the Times—by appealing to the erudition (or fancied erudition) of his ideal readers, well, there are worse ways, especially if down the line this means more paying gigs for critics. (Alternately, it'll just be all Kyle Smith, all the time.)
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