Unsettling developments over at Resident Advisor, where both the Editor-In-Chief (Tami Fenwick) and the Managing Editor (Jeremy Armitage) have resigned after Jeremy’s original review of Digweed’s Transitions 4 was pulled by the site founders. Tami and Jeremy allege that this was due to worries about advertising revenue from the Renaissance label.
This does seem to fundamentally compromise the integrity of the site – how many other reviews have been edited or modified to satisfy the needs of labels/promoters? I wonder. But then again I often wonder, with many review sites and blogs, just how much content can be dictated by receipt of promos, e-mail campaigns from labels, or stipulations from advertisers.
Red has since countered the claims of the editors. Personally I think it’s essential that this ‘dirty laundry’ is aired on the forums if any of us are going to put any value in RA’s future content. All parties need to explain what they think and why, hopefully without it descending into crabbing at each other.
This seems to be a very tricky happening for RA. I hope the founders can persuade us all that their content is still worth something, but most of all I hope that Jeremy and Tami can be persuaded to return to the site, even if their faith in it is understandably shaken at the moment. Jeremy’s writing is always interesting – as is his openness about the workings of the editorial process – and Tami has been very helpful in correspondence. Here’s hoping there’s a satisfactory resolution to this fiasco.
EDIT – Jeremy has since explained his position further in this post and is writing a blog post about this, possibly to be posted at HIAF. Keep an eye out. If anything good comes from this it’ll be a more realistic understanding of the editorial process in online music criticism. I have a feeling that my own image has been a bit rose-tinted up to now.
i don’t know what worries me more – that this has happened in the first place, or that several people seem to be happy to just let it slide…
I can’t verify the veracity of any of the claims (from Jeremy & Tami or from RA mgmt), but I do know trouble had been brewing behind the scenes for a while. This seems like a convenient time and cause for resolving that.
It’s a shame. Personally I’ve really enjoyed their content recently – especially the many interviews – and the forums have produced some really interesting, lively discussions.
I hope this is dealt with swiftly and clearly.
just to echo LWE, i’d also heard there was some problems. also, i think people tend to take RA for granted, but i think actually making it a profitable, worthwhile business for those running it, while maintaining its credibility is quite difficult.
it is worth checking out a really interesting discussion about some of these problems over at test:
http://www.testindustries.com/2008/06/spinning-out-of-control.html
but the one thing i have to strongly disagree with you on is the RA forums – while the content of the site is generally of a very high level, most of the discussion in the forums tends to be rubbish. i’ve noticed that threads from reviews seem increasingly to be about reviewing the reviewer, rather than actually discussing the music itself.
anyway, i’ll stop. tami + jeremy have put in a lot of hard work into RA and getting the content to a high standard, so hopefully things work out ok (for full disclosure, i should say i’m friends with them).
you’re right about some of the threads on there, especially the music review ones, but I think there’ve been some curious discussions in other areas – I for one really like reading the threads about Berlin.
also, even some of the ‘review the reviewer’ threads have thrown up some surprising things – none of the other forums i’ve ever visited have had quite so many actual producers (or the equivalent band members) giving their take on things.
there’s a lot of dross, but there are also some very interesting and well-spoken people on there.
Hi guys,
I agree that this incident raises a number of issues related to the state of online crit, and readers are entitled to a full explanation as to why Tami Fenwick and I decided to resign from RA. I will be putting together a blog post over the next few days, possibly at House Is A Feeling, which will hopefully can clear up some of the fogginess.
Cheers
Jeremy Armitage
PS: Nice blog, Teleost!
I’m looking forward to reading it and I hope you can make your presence felt elsewhere in the community if RA’s completely off your slate now.
Having read that Test thread, i’m not convinced that ‘hidden PR’ is a necessary part of the fuel for generally positive reviews. I’ve read occassionally that reviewers on RA often choose what they review – don’t know if this is true – which might explain why people generally go for things they like. Myself, I just prefer writing about things I like. If I was writing about something I didn’t like I’m pretty sure I’d just get angry. And want to listen to something else.
So I think there’s a danger of too easily dismissing positive criticism as fanboy behaviour – just as there’s a danger of dismissing negative criticism as gratuitous provocation.
interested to see how R.A holds up however bitter editors feeding info to blogs is sad….
I’m not sure what you mean by that. If Jeremy is in disagreement with RA, and has to all intents and purposes stopped contributing to the site, where else is he going to publicise his version of events other than on a blog? In any case, it’s up to Ronan whether he decides to publish it…
The eternal conflict of interests between media and media feeders, the announcers.
There’s always a quick and immediate response to this kind of situtations.
But let’s put ourselves in the boots of RA founder.
Let’s say we run a company with XXX people working for it.
Let’s say that company gets most of its revenues from one annoucer.
Would you do anything to annoy that announcer ?.
probably not, even if your heart tells you to.
Critic-wise, never take anything for granted, nor in RA nor anywhere else. The day dollar was ivnented, credibility was dead.
And thanks to that story, I discovered your blog, excellent.
@chris: “i’ve noticed that threads from reviews seem increasingly to be about reviewing the reviewer”
There’s a very good reason for that – some of the reviews are terrible.
this happened at gamespot too:
http://kotaku.com/gaming/rumor/gamespot-editor-fired-over-kane–lynch-review-328244.php