Blair Kamin has resigned from the Chicago Tribune, leaving our third largest city—and arguably most important architectural metropolis—without an architectural critic in a major media outlet. Elizabeth Blasius provides some insightful observations of this development in The Architect’s Newspaper.
Kamin’s resignation is the symptom of a larger problem: the slow, sad decline of traditional media, particularly newspapers. As the business model of many newspapers has failed, they have shrunk to the point of irrelevance, unable to provide the “gumshoe reporting” and insightful editorials that are essential for a functioning democracy. Without traditional newspapers, who is going to cover the city council, the water and sewer board, and all of the other components of our local and state governments? Who is going to investigate fish kills in the river or an unusual outbreak of rashes among children—and then hold the polluters accountable? Who is going to make objective truth their daily business?
This is a huge problem, and as I have argued previously, I believe that our myriad colleges and universities can at least partially address this void by endorsing a scholarship of reporting.