Timothy Mangan writes in his Orange County Register classical music blog about music critics’ need to prove themselves through their rankings or face losing their jobs, or abandon any hopes of security of employment. He encourages us to subscribe to our local music critics’s blogs, read them, click all the links, and leave comments. His original post:
Well, I do have an idea, or a few of them. Here are some easy ways to keep this critic at least, writing for this newspaper. Adjust as needed for the critic in your area.
1. Subscribe to The Orange County Register.
2. Bookmark this blog and visit daily. Newspapers are religiously counting “hits” on blogs and Web sites these days. I get between 1,500 to 2,000 a week. This is considered decent for a classical critic, but the real estate blogger here gets up to 40,000 a week. I’ll never get there, but more hits certainly equals a relatively higher degree of job security.
3. When I offer a link to a Web page for one of my reviews, click on it and indicate that you have read it by pressing the Yes or No buttons at the bottom, which register whether or not you recommend the review to others.
4. Send links of reviews and blog items that interest you to friends and colleagues.
5. Leave comments on this blog (they are counted too).
Coda: One of the problems, I feel, facing classical critics is all this counting going on. My readers are generally older, and do not make daily treks on the Web. They read me in the print newspaper, and aren’t as easily counted.
I can’t help but grin to see how the playing field is becoming more and more level in classical music criticism. I am also fortunate to not have to answer to a boss on this blog. Read Scott Spiegleberg’s Musical Perceptions post about the top classical blogs from last month. rogerbourland.com is ranked 28 this time by the Technorati guardian angels.
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