A cry for respect

After an (only apparent) lull in activity regarding arts coverage in San Diego and Robert Pincus' professional whereabouts, now comes a post from Katherine Sweetman, one of several artist-writers drafted to volunteer for the Union-Tribune's new arts blog.

Here is her opening:

In an effort to step up the appearance of supporting the visual arts, The Union Tribune has graciously offered a handful of artists, scholars, and arts professionals the opportunity to write for them-- requiring only one blog post per week (52 per year). And the pay? Oh... no pay.

Arts are very important to the Union Tribune but... so is money.

I accepted one of these positions. It was exciting. There were no rules, no journalistic constraints, no editors, no... tech support. We knew right away we were special.

We were a small army of of advanced-degree carrying practicing artists, college professors, and arts writers ready to take up the challenge of solving the lack of arts coverage in San Diego and fixing the mess the Union Tribune created when it laid off its only Art Critic, Robert Pincus, last June.

We were assured that we were not taking Pincus' place. He had, in fact, been replaced by James Chute, formerly the Music Critic and Special Sections Editor. Chute had never written anything on art before, but he did have a Music degree so... he was clearly qualified to handle visual arts too. But we decided to help him anyway.

And then it hit us.

Read the rest here: http://www.signonsandiego.com/weblogs/katherine-sweetman/2010/nov/07/an-introduction-resignation-a-small-gesture/

From our contacts with Bob, he seems to be doing great: teaching, writing, planning his next moves like a chessmaster. What about the Union-Tribune? How do you think their arts coverage has developed since June 17, when Bob and dozens of other journalists were laid off? Leave a note here or on the Facebook page.