Don’t Blame Twitter; It’s Consumer Culture That Harms Criticism

Ron Charles: “We live in a consumer culture. Many feature writers are pressured to produce copy that their readers can ‘use’ — that is, use to buy things. Combine that with a thirst for clicks and views, and you’ve got the potential for abuse. (A freelancer for a women’s magazine told me recently that she’s been instructed to rave about the books she’s assigned, no matter what she really thinks. That’s not book criticism; it’s publicity. And it’s hardly ‘nice’ to the people who really matter: our readers.)”