Artists unite! You have nothing to lose but the Union-Tribune!

Editor: The following was taken from a comment to an article by Don Bauder of the Reader, written by Katherine Sweetman – formerly of the San Diego Union-Tribune – and reposted here without permission:

My First and Last Article for the Union Tribune

by Katherine Sweetman / It was in the U-T until pulled / Nov. 8, 2010

An Introduction/ Resignation (A Small Gesture)

In an effort to step up the appearance of supporting the visual arts, The Union Tribune has graciously offered a handful of artists, scholars, and arts professionals the opportunity to write for them– requiring only one blog post per week (52 per year). And the pay? Oh… no pay.

Arts are very important to the Union Tribune but… so is money.

I accepted one of these positions. It was exciting. There were no rules, no journalistic constraints, no editors, no… tech support. We knew right away we were special.

We were a small army of of advanced-degree carrying practicing artists, college professors, and arts writers ready to take up the challenge of solving the lack of arts coverage in San Diego and fixing the mess the Union Tribune created when it laid off its only Art Critic, Robert Pincus, last June.

Robert Pincus, former art critic for the U-T, canned last June.

We were assured that we were not taking Pincus’ place. He had, in fact, been replaced by James Chute, formerly the Music Critic and Special Sections Editor. Chute had never written anything on art before, but he did have a Music degree so… he was clearly qualified to handle visual arts too. But we decided to help him anyway.

And then it hit us.

We hate the Union Tribune.

We hate the way they abruptly ended the tenure of the most important arts critic in San Diego’s history. We hate James Chute’s pathetic coverage of artists– which just makes us look bad (seriously, read his stuff).

We hate editor Jeff Light and the private equity corporation pulling his strings.

AND we also hate their conservative politics of the Union Tribune (endorsements of John McCain for president 2008, Whitman 2010, Fiorina 2010, etc.)

It seems, to me, visual artists should be boycotting the Union Tribune not writing for them– for free!

When I say “we” in the text above, I may only mean me, but you may want to include yourself in the statement “We hate the Union Tribune” if you value paid and knowledgeable arts writers, like having an arts critic, think the people of San Diego are smart enough to want art criticism, or even if you hate their political values.

Yes, it’s true it’s hard to find a writing gig that pays well. It’s hard to find a writing gig that pays at all. But I personally will be taking my all free writing elsewhere.