Up until very recently I was employed by the Philadelphia Inquirer as a music critic. To make a long drama short, I’m no longer there. In what I feel is a misguided attempt to charm Internet readers, Knight-Ridder is now asking reporters to provide all sorts of multimedia “extras”óin this “new” world, covering a concert might mean phoning in first impressions while it’s going on, then generating brief six-graf updates for the web, and then sitting down to write, on deadline, a review. That’s backwards. Seems to me the strategy should be to get the story first and then worry about bells and whistles. This is why I’m not in management.

Tom Moon
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Wow. So we can deduce the following: In one fell swoop, Moon mimicks the same cranky-old-man shit re: new media as his other freshly retired homies; decrying his obsolescence, ironically, in the same paper bag (Pazz & Jop) that kinda brought it on in the first place. Which is a drag, and frankly, we expected better. Also likes to complain about working/deadlines, which muddies the issue even further. And definitely done with the Inky, who still seem to believe that he was due back in the office on January 2. Which also means that DeLuca is now top dog, since you pretty much know the shriveldicks at PNI won’t be making a new hire soon. BUT everyone will send their resumes in anyway. (We’re looking at you, Valania, Berkery, et. al.) Phew! In any case, it’s a kind of dull exit for the dude who, even though everyone had some kind of bone to pick with him, deserves something at least a little bit better. Tom, if you are out there, get in touch and we’ll give you a proper happy hour send-off. We’ll do some Luaka Bop giveaways and let you talk about jazz. It’ll be nice.
VillageVoice: All The Bitchfits Fit To Print

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 2nd, 2006 at 10:00 am.