Here's one sad story about the economy having an effect on media/coverage and it in turn having an effect on local theatre companies. SF Weekly has been forced to reduce its staff of capsule reviewers due to the lower-than-usual number of ad pages in the coming months' papers. Chloe Veltman, a theatre critic and arts journalist for the paper, and her team, feel the pain first:
"The paper's coverage of theatre will drop from three plays -- my 1,000-word column plus two 200-word capsule reviews -- to just my column. The publication will not be running capsules in January. The situation is likely to remain the same in February and March at least.And then she points to the inevitable.
This is unhappy news for my great team of capsule reviewers at SF Weekly. I'm sad about it too, as making decisions about which shows to review among the hundreds to pick from each month has been hard enough in the past. Now the task is going to be even more difficult."
"Even more terrible though, is the impact of the falling coverage on the local theatre scene. Small companies in particular rely heavily on reviews not just for selling tickets but also for getting grants. In these tough economic times, the fall-off in media interest is particularly crippling."Will this happen Orlando or not, and why? The Sentinel's parent company has filed for bankruptcy. Newspapers all over the country all closing. Is the Sentinel next? What about the Orlando Weekly? What can producers, arts org directors, indie artists do now to prepare for the worst, or should we? Maybe we should sit and wait?