Puffin’s Place

Taking off my campaign buttons and lifting the baton for a moment, I must say that I am gobsmacked by the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s recent removal of its music critic because that critic wrote some negative reviews of the orchestra leader, Franz Welser-Most. By relocating Donald Rosenberg, the Plain Dealer is working hard to re-define critic as one who praises constantly.

Romensko at Poynter Online prints a letter of protest from the Music Critics Association of North America that says, among other things,

Mindful of your authority as editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer and your description of Mr. Rosenberg’s case as an internal personnel matter, we nonetheless must urge you to rescind your action. The silencing of a critic not only challenges the foundation of our particular profession, but weakens the foundation of journalism itself. It is not at all hyperbolic to see this case as a threat to a free and independent press.

We ask you to consider this theoretical scenario: A newspaper hires a commentator to give opinions about the local mayor and city council on a regular basis; the writer’s work draws fire from the politicians and their supporters; the newspaper relieves the writer of his post. No self-respecting publication would ever do such a thing, but your treatment of Mr. Rosenberg has unavoidably put the Plain Dealer in this unflattering light.

If you have missed this controversy and are interested in catching up, here is one blogger’s view. And a google of Rosenberg and Cleveland Plain Dealer brings up a feast of wrath.