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From KQED.

Welcome to Forum. I'm Leslie McClurg. I'm in this morning for Mina Kim. There's a part of the

newsroom that it may be shrinking faster than any other part that is the Arts Desk. This summer,

the Associated Press scrapped its weekly book reviews. The Chicago Tribune lost its film critic and a buyout.

Same at the Washington Post. The New York Times

reassigned several critics off their beats and Vanity Fair parted ways with its chief critic.

So what happens when fewer professionals are keeping tabs on culture? And what is filling the

void? I'm joined by Angelica Jade Bastastian. She's senior writer for Vulture.

And Kalefa Senei is staff writer for The New Yorker. His recent piece is titled

How Music Criticism Lost Its Edge.

Kalefa, there are some major media outlets that say the reason that they are pulling back

is because reviews just aren't getting enough clicks.

Why do you think that is?

Well, one thing that's happened is that the model really inverted.

Like, in the old days, you got a newspaper thrown through your front door every day,

and you could read for no extra cost about the latest albums,

and then decide whether or not you wanted to spend your money to buy the latest albums.

In other words, the criticism was nearly free, and it cost money to listen to music.

...