Just Saying

Shouldn't richmond.com be local? Isn't that the one unique thing they can do that few other web portals in the world can do? So why, in the Monday Arts & Entertainment set of links, two of the three are not local? One is about Beyonce, the other about the Miss California that annoyed Perez Hilton, as if P. Hilton is someone anyone should be concerned about annoying.

Are there not three local Arts & Entertainmnet stories in the entire metropolitan area today? The third one is a shallow mini-essay introducing an online Mother's Day brunch listing in which the restaurants actually have to enter the data themselves. There's only four places listed today, one twice because I assume no editor will ever go into this page to clean up mistakes.

Richmond's arts coverage by the major media has always been lacking. It may be because arts coverage by its very nature has to be confrontational. You can't like everything to have any credibility, and disliking anything requires superlative writing skills and nerves of steel because inevitably the population turns on you.

But generating anger is an important part of the arts discourse, the feedback, the opposition, the sound and the fury. It builds readership for the next expected insult to their sensibilities and it engages them in the criticism and enjoyment of local art and entertainment. Everyone likes to rise to the defense, more than they like to agree. Editors often forget about this necessity and see it as undesirable controversy that might damage advertising revenue. Big mistake. It might damage advertising initially, but if the readership increases, the advertisers will come back.

That's why coverage of local arts and entertainment is essential, and it's not Beyonce or Miss California, unless they appear at The Camel.