Chronicle’s book review section in danger
In the aftermath of LitQuake comes this article on Publishers Weekly on the dubious state of newspapers’ book review sections, with a quote from SF Chronicle editor Phil Bronstein:
“It gets harder and harder to justify something that has no ad support,” said Bronstein. “We continue to do it because we think it is important to the cultural community of the Bay Area.”
Yes — it’s the publishers and bookstores who aren’t buying ads. It must have been a blow when A Clean Well-Lighted Place closed — they had a big ad every week. Books Inc. seems to have taken up the slack to some degree, but the fact is that it’s the publishers who should offer most of the support. Maybe if they cut down on some of those obscene advances to a few genre authors….
Bronstein goes on to say he’s “not sure how much longer” the Chronicle can continue to publish a book review section.
Man, it would really suck if that went away. It’s important as much for its symbolic presence. I don’t expect the Tulsa World to have a book review, but San Francisco without a book review section would be like San Francisco without a ballet.
I was interested to note that, while the Chronicle has been a major sponsor of LitQuake in the past, apparently they were not a sponsor this year. That’s not to say they don’t deserve thanks for what they’ve done in the past, when the festival was younger and less known.
Is he, by definition, implying that the Editorial pages and headlines etc are ad supported? Somebody has to remind the Mr. Bronstein that you can cut away at the core only so much before the newspaper loses all relevance. Maybe he should step aside so the Chron can find someone else to figure out how to make money with the paper.
“Bronstein goes on to say he’s “not sure how much longer” the Chronicle can continue to publish a book review section.”
Geez, he must have been affected by some of that “bad bacteria” of the Komodo dragon’s bite, that I heard about the other day on Animal Planet. I second SF Gary, certainly someone in his position should be able to figure out how to make money with the paper, or find a sales or marketing person that can generate ad revenues for this section.
Possibly the Chronicle could find enough savings to keep the book review alive by jettisoning one exorbitant salary of Mr. Bronstein?