Sunday, July 12, 2009

6924: New Low Standards In Journalism.


This actual craigslist ad seeks writers to provide art criticism for Newcity, a Chicago free weekly newspaper. The extraordinarily lengthy classified warrants the following artistic critique:

You guys are cheap bastards. Kinda sleazy too.

Newcity proclaims, “From the beginning, we’ve been a publication with a special appreciation for, and relationship with, writers and artists.” Yet you’re offering up to $25 for a review—and you bury the admission that payment can be expected within a year of publication.

Hope you find a few starving art critics.


Write art criticism for Newcity
Reply to: gigs-39dyq-1266543004@craigslist.org
Date: 2009-07-12, 5:30PM CDT

Chicago's Newcity magazine is looking for contributors to its art section. We publish weekly exhibition reviews on shows at museums, galleries, and alternative spaces, and profiles on local artists, curators, dealers, and art world luminaries. Contributors will be invited to submit pitches for all Chicago area scenes and all artistic media, and an assignment list will also be distributed. Knowledge of Chicago's artistic climate is helpful, and a willingness to attend art shows outside of your comfort zone is required.

Expect to write 1 pithy and concise review weekly (250-300 words, $10), and 1 profile (350-400 words, $25) every 1-2 months. Other opportunities to write feature-length articles and blurbs in special issues could become available.

Newcity's art section covers more ground than any other publication in Chicago. Your reviews and articles will be published online (http://art.newcity.com/) and in print.

To apply, send a writing sample and resume.

More information about Newcity:

From the beginning, we’ve been a publication with a special appreciation for, and relationship with, writers and artists. The list of Newcity contributors and alumni who’ve influenced and shaped American culture, with words, with images or both, is lengthy and one we’re proud of and constantly seeking to extend. Twenty-plus years in, we’ve evolved into an enterprise equally at home online and in print, but our core values remain unchanged: We believe that what we create, through the combined words and images of our individual contributors, is not only a chronicler and critic of the arts, but has the potential to be a work of art in itself, and to that end we constantly strive. We’re the last of our kind in Chicago still locally owned, and we take that unique role as a responsibility to be the absolutely very best that our city has to offer.

We want scoops, but we don’t want them written in the style of a daily newspaper or a lifestyle web site that breathlessly regurgitates PR copy. We want voice, criticism and perspective, but we don’t want opinion. While we prefer articles about things no one else has addressed, we also look for stories about things everyone else has covered, as long as we get it in a singular style or from an unconventional perspective. When others use a microscope, we prefer a telescope; and vice versa.

Assignments: New contributors to Newcity rarely work “on assignment,” meaning that we are neither committed to publish nor pay a kill fee even if we respond with interest to your query or manuscript.

Editing philosophy: We consider Newcity a writer’s publication. Please do not hesitate to raise questions or concerns with any member of our editorial staff.

Payment: The “new economy” has not been nice to us, or to our ability to pay creators. Contributors to our web sites are currently doing so on a volunteer basis in nearly all cases. This is not our preferred state of affairs, and as the economics of our world improves, we will look for ways to change. We still pay for stories we run in print, albeit modestly and at a time lag that is equally absurd, about a year after publication currently.

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