In the News

A particularly relevant question for GMOA: What role should the museum play in the rapidly changing world of arts journalism? At the Art Newspaper, an article by András Szántó on the current crisis in arts journalism explores how the field must reinvent itself during this period of upheaval in the newspaper business. For a long time, the task of informing the public about local art happenings has fallen to local papers. But with so many newspapers either folding or drastically reducing their coverage (one local example being the Atlanta Journal-Constitution), its becoming increasingly hard to find strong coverage of the arts. In his article, Szántó lays out three possible solutions to the problem: the job of reporting on the arts will either fall to individual bloggers, to non-profit news sources like NPR or to cultural institutions.

Luckily, Athens still has many traditional sources of arts coverage (the Banner-Herald, the Flagpole, Blur magazine, etc.). Even so, with our blog GMOA provides another source for the promotion of local arts, much in the way that Szántó envisions the role of cultural institutions. GMOA, like museums across the country, is taking “the lead in creating an alternative media infrastructure” with new media sources like our blog and our virtual museum in Second Life. While it may be a difficult time for arts journalism, the GMOA blog certainly is working to help the arts thrive in Athens and throughout the state with its coverage of events both local and global.