The Scoop
A shakeup of the New York Times culture section has promoted a fierce internal backlash in a letter of complaint and a private meeting with top editors, amid suggestions that a new generation of critics may have to excel in front of the camera.
Earlier this month, the Times announced that it was reassigning television critic Margaret Lyons, music critic Jon Pareles, theater critic Jesse Green, and classical music critic Zach Woolfe to other parts of the paper. The move was part of what Times culture editor Sia Michel said were broader cultural shifts driven by technology; she said in an internal memo that Times readers were “hungry for trusted guides to help them make sense of this complicated landscape, not only through traditional reviews but also with essays, new story forms, videos and experimentation with other platforms.”
In a letter sent Monday to the paper’s leadership and seen by Semafor, nearly 50 unionized culture staffers said they were “shocked and deeply concerned” by the reassignments and said that since the news broke, “confusion has only grown about these changes and the targeting of four valued colleagues who have been strong, authoritative voices on the desk.” Culture employees said the masthead should hold a meeting to explain the changes.
The paper obliged, and on Wednesday, Executive Editor Joe Kahn, Assistant Managing Editor Sam Sifton, and Michel met with staff for an hour at the paper’s midtown headquarters to field questions about the staff changes. According to four employees with knowledge of the situation, the meeting at times grew tense as Times journalists pressed management on why the paper would abruptly reassign critics and how it envisioned using short form video and other mediums to enhance its coverage.
Times staff who spoke with Semafor said that overall, the paper’s leadership did not explain in detail how it saw criticism changing, and did not offer many clues as to the types of new story forms the masthead was seeking.
Kahn repeatedly emphasized that the critics were not removed due to performance issues, but said the paper wanted to bring “fresh perspectives” to the critics’ roles. Times leadership also said the paper wanted to move away from a “thumbs up, thumbs down” review style, and instead offer criticism that would provide more information and context for people who did not plan to see or hear the reviewed works themselves.
According to staff in the meeting, Kahn seemed somewhat surprised by the strong response to the reassignments. He pointed out that while the culture desk has been largely immune from regular staff overhauls, other sections regularly shuffle journalists and editors between beats.
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Max’s view
The Times is clearly in the midst of rethinking its critical voice. In June, the paper announced that it had hired two food critics to fill the chief restaurant critic role vacated by Pete Wells. The new critics had a broader remit than Wells, reviewing restaurants outside of New York City and producing short-form video reviews for social media.
On the newspaper’s opinion side, the paper has experimented with its editorial board endorsement process, avoiding endorsing a candidate in the New York mayor’s race and instead bringing in a panel of local voices to sound off on each mayoral prospect. It has also turned many of its high-profile opinion writers into podcasters and on-camera talent for YouTube and the Times’ own apps.
All this suggests a shift from text-based reviews to more personal, video-driven tastemaking for the TikTok age. The paper’s leadership believes that criticism looks very different in a media environment where some of the most influential critics and tastemakers shape the public’s opinions via video, podcasting, and social media. It’s a bet that the Times’ current critical authority could be limited in a world with shorter attention spans and growing appetites for opinions to be offered in multiple formats. The Times’ restaurant critics are already experimenting with this, as is the paper’s pop music section, whose short-form video essays have repeatedly gone viral.
But the abruptness of the changes spooked longtime staff, who understandably recoiled at the implication that critics are the same as regular beat reporters. Kahn’s suggestion that they should be reshuffled in a similar manner seemed to overlook the specialization of those jobs. The paper’s critics hold those roles for years, deepening their authority in their zones of expertise.
Among Times’ culture staff, the recent reassignments also raised some questions about Kahn’s personal taste. The decision to reassign Woolfe, the paper’s classical music critic, came less than a year after Woolfe was publicly admonished for his criticism by the head of the New York Metropolitan Opera, where Kahn is a regular presence. A senior Times staffer dismissed the idea that external criticism had any influence over the decision to reassign Woolfe or other critics.
Regardless of why the paper chose those four critics, the move showed how Kahn has continued to push back against a newsroom that hasn’t been afraid to voice its displeasure at controversial moves by management.
Since ascending to the top job in 2022, Kahn has not been shy about criticizing what he has seen as complacency or oversensitivity within his own newsroom. He irked younger staff when he suggested to Semafor’s Ben Smith last year that many kids coming out of college had been trained for safe spaces. “I don’t think that this generation of college grads has been fully prepared for what we are asking our people to do, which is to commit themselves to the idea of independent journalism,” he told Ben.
He also raised eyebrows internally when he dismissed criticism of the Times’ coverage of the 2024 race, much of which came from the paper’s liberal readers, who expressed anger at the paper’s coverage of Donald Trump’s norm-breaking and of Joe Biden’s age.
Notable
- Richard Brody, who has been starring in social-first short-form videos for the New Yorker for years in addition to his written criticism, knocked the Times over its reassignment and reinvention of its critical roles. “When media companies quiet or subordinate voices that meet art where it happens — that lend it the spark of life on the page, that kindle artistic fervor in readers — a decline in enthusiasm for the arts, and for arts journalism, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he wrote.