Critical coniptions, continued

Following on from the link I posted the other day, here is a response to Everett True's Crikey piece.

The nature of criticism, particularly music criticism, is a thorny one.  One nineteenth century journalist asked whether it was possible for "any section of the public to be lectured to death by wild critics," and opined that the role of the music critic is to be "the public's guide, philosopher and friend."  A question that always comes to my mind when the discussion turns to the nature and role of critics in the modern media is: in a postmodern (possibly even post-postmodern) world, what might that idea of criticism mean?  After all, there is value in a distinction between critics of the calibre of Richard Taruskin or Norman Lebrecht, for example, and the sorts of opinions that pass for criticism in the world of bloggery.  In Melbourne, none of the daily newspapers publishes the complete run of reports from their music critics on the website; this is especially the case with 'classical' concerts.  I wonder if the room for specialization opened up by the Web might be unhelpful to someone wanting a bigger picture of the nature of art and culture, but on the other hand, I can see that the possibility for addressing the local absence of serious musical writing in web formats might be the most powerful upside of this bind.

We live in an age where the media for disseminating critical opinion is mushrooming in various ways.  I am sympathetic with the model of criticism True identifies with, and it has to be said that criticism on the web does seem to have a shorter half-life.  Perhaps there's room for the critical equivalent of slow food.