Paramount Cutting Back

“Paramount Pictures said it would cut the size of its future release schedule to about 20 films a year, including as many as four to be supplied annually by DreamWorks Animation and Marvel Studios. The announcement came after recent news that executives of Paramount’s DreamWorks unit would leave to form a new company.”

Sniffing Out News Bias Without Any, Um, Bias

The problem with media watchdogs is that they tend to come at their practice from a preset partisan position, and look only for journalistic offenses that target their side. “But what if there were a device that objectively flagged questionable elements in online news articles, poking and parsing words and phrases, and letting you contribute your own critiques?”

More Bad Blood In Shreveport

“Tensions continue to rise between the Shreveport Symphony Orchestra board and musicians as the musicians’ strike looms over the group’s 61st season.” The orchestra’s board insists that the strike is illegal, while the musicians say that the supposed “master agreement” under which the orchestra is operating was never agreed to by them.

Chicago Symphony To Expand Educational Mission

“The Chicago Symphony Orchestra has announced an ambitious music-education initiative that aims to involve the orchestra in the musical life of Chicagoans from the kindergarten level through young adulthood. Under its new Institute for Learning, Access and Training, the CSO has bundled 19 separate programs — three of them newly established –to reach more than 200,000 young people, regardless of whether they have a special interest in music.”

Did The National Symphony Miss An Opportunity?

“Tonight, Iván Fischer officially begins his two-year stint as principal conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra,” and Anne Midgette wonders what could have been had Fischer and the NSO reached an agreement to make him the orchestra’s music director. Instead, the orchestra will spend the next two years awaiting the arrival of Chrstoph Eschenbach, who “will be 70 when he takes over.”