« Who Have You Discovered at Random? | Main | James Levine to undergo surgery, cancels Met, Boston Symphony gigs - Baltimore Sun »
September 29, 2009
Baltimore Sun Stereotyping Classical Music Lovers, Evidence Suggests
Dear readers, please forgive the personal tone of this post. As my colleague Benjamins Britten was investigating sources in Baltimore for his piece yesterday on how orchestras can weather the current financial crisis, he called my attention to something rather disturbing. It appears that the Baltimore Sun, that troubled and incredibly shrinking sister paper of the Chicago Tribune, is engaging in, shall we say, a form of profiling that assumes some very unfavorable things about classical music lovers.
The offensive item in question comes in the form a “targeted advertisement” on the right sidebar of the popular Clef Notes blog written by the Sun’s music critic (and former president of the Music Critics Association of North America) Tim Smith. What, exactly, is the Baltimore Sun suggesting with the presence of this ad? That perhaps the classical music loving readers of the Clef Notes blog are somehow scrawny weaklings who present a disheveled and unkempt appearance? Though I’ve been known to go without showering, brushing my teeth, or changing clothes for a week or so at a time during my frequent 12-tone composing binges, I condemn this blatant profiling by the Baltimore Sun.
However, what I truly fear is that we here at The Cereal List have stumbled upon something that is just the tip of the iceberg. Surely there are other examples of this disgusting practice. How can classical musicians ever hope to gain the respect we are entitled to when the mainstream media is clearly conspiring against us?
Originally posted by Milton Blabber from The Cereal List, ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Sep 29, 2009 at 06:22 PM