Support Your Local TV Critic. Or Should You?

Sorry, I take the Sunday paper only and read Parade magazine, the funnies, the sales circulars that interest me and use their weekly TV scedule. I'm afraid I wouldn't be affected much if the local paper's TV critic (if they even have one) lost his job or the newspaper dried up and blew away.

But I heartily support your views!

Now my 78 year old mom, she reads the paper front to back every day. At her age, the part she turns to first is the obits.

My local paper is the NYT, but I read your blog, Alan Sepinwall, Tim Goodman, Matt Zoller Seitz, TV Tattle, and yes, the Times. On all of you, I read reviews AND blogs. I would miss the reviews, but would miss the blogs much more. This is a place for more back and forth, it's more relaxed and just more interesting.

I find I go to hard copy newspapers less and less these days. For the first time in over 40 years, I don't subscribe to a local paper. For TV news, and I do look for it, I look at this blog first and Tim Goodman second. For hard news political commentary, I have online subscriptions to the WSJ and the NYT. I listen to McNeil Lehrer (sometimes watch it on TV), All Things Considered on NPR and I read a ton of "liberal" blogs.

I too am sorry to see the demise of newspapers. Lord know what will happen to the WSJ once Murdoch gets control. but most of them have become largely irrelevant. Craigs List has cannabalized the classifieds so now they have to cater even more to their advertisers.

So, if fewer TV critics get to go to LA and freeload a bit, I'll feel for those who don't get to go again. (I've done some freeloading in my time; it can be fun)

But I take web page printouts to the john with me now. That's when I realized that, for me, newspapers are dead.

I think that in the globalized world
the concept of “local” news/media is fairly fungible.

Local Network affiliates are now part of media conglomerates. The same goes for newspapers. I was in Boston recently and watched the “local” news. The two stories were about a kidnapped girl in Illinois and flooding in Texas. While both stories are newsworthy, they are not actually news for people watching the Local Boston news. Local news broadcasts and, to a lesser extent, local newspapers are actually more national than local these days.

All of this is a long winded way to say that the loss of local TV critics is actually part of a larger trend on a loss of Local media.

Actually Bruce, I think newspapers are trying to stay competitive with the web by featuring more local, even "hyper-local" coverage. My hometown paper of record, the Boston Globe, has made significant cuts to its national and international bureaus, the idea being that readers can get those stories from the NYT or Washington Post (the damage this has done to our marketplace of ideas is a whole other discussion). And some of the more profitable newspapers around are suburban chains that provide coverage people can't get from national sources, like high school sports and town government.

I think local TV critics will earn their keep not by covering the few local TV stories, but by carrying on a dialogue with readers through email, blogs, web chats, podcasts, etc. That stuff goes a long way in establishing the trust that readers need to have in their hometown critics.

I don't get my local paper, haven't in years because of the rampant conservative bias (I live down South). I don't care about local TV critics - no offense to them, I have just never read any local TV criticism. I read this and other TV blogs - I would rather have the back-and-forth discussion where people from all over can share their views in a forum like this. I think that daily newspapers are slowly becoming outdated anyway with everything (even versions of local papers) being available online. Save paper, save the gas used in delivery, save waste, etc.

Unfortunately, the "local TV critic" seldom performs the function for whom s/he is best suited --- criticising local TV.

Indeed, the overwhelming majority of TV critics are a complete waste of newsprint, bandwidth, and airtime, because they virtually ingore the medium as a medium, and write only about a small fraction of the output of the typical television series -- and almost never go back to revisit those series once their judgement has been made.

What we need are television critics who look at television as a whole and its influence on our culture. But, of course, that isn't "synergistic" -- it doesn't allow for cross-marketing between platforms (i.e. Times.com's obsessive coverage of CNN's YouTube debate -- and Time.com's complete blackout of information concerning the debates sponsored by the NAACP--- do you think this mere coincidence?)

So we can expect the same vacuous, trivial "reviews" of new television shows from our TV critics from now until forever, because if TV critics actually did their jobs, they'd wind up criticising their own bosses for their role in rotting the brains of Americans simply to line their pockets, and the pocket of their stockholders.

I missed part of your question. Does the local TV critic matter?

Yes, if it's someone like you or, my local guy, Tim Goodman. I haven't the time to wade through all the junk that's out there. That's what you and Goodman do, and do very well. I've even written a "thank you" note to Goodman, thanking him for all the recommendations he's made over the years. I will forever be in his debt for "The Wire". I came to the show late in the first season and couldn't get with it. Because of him, I started at the beginning of season 2. Not long into it, I bought the DVD of Season 1. for my money, it is the best show ever on TV. W/O Goodman, I'd have missed it.

So yes, TV critics who are good are very very good indeed and provide a valuable service to us TiVo oerators

BeerBaron - good point regarding the Boston Globe. . I do concede that one strategy for papers is to focus on local news. However, I would point out that the Globe is part of the NYT family, which, to a degree, highlights the troublesome issue of media conglomerates

I guess my thoughts were better directed towards at Local TV news/media.

I'm feeling a little bit ambivalent about mynewspaper right now. A decades-long subscriber to the Chicago Tribune, I'm consider scaling back or canceling my subscription entirely, mostly due to lack of time. I read most columnists online, and the news is old by the time I get to it. But I feel guilty even thinking of canceling my subscription. It's got to be an age thing I'm also a decades-long subscriber to Time and Newsweek (don't worry - I don't even consider canceling).

Love your column and blog, and I'm a faithful reader of Tim Goodman, Alan Sepinwall, and Mo Ryan. I must admit I don't care for Doug Elfman of the Chgo Sun-Times quite as much.

Local TV critic? Are you kidding me? I live in LA. Every person I meet is a TV critic, including me. The main difference between us and you is that we don't get paid for our opinions.

Unless the show in question is Entourage, which takes place at many Los Angeles locations that I have been to, why should I care what my local critic has to say about a show? What matters more to me is who is saying what at my favorite websites, like Pajiba, Defamer and Television Without Pity. In cyberspace, shared opinions matter more that physical location.