Philip Hensher: Help save the review (and the reviewer)
The Independent, Thursday, 11 December 2008

Newspapers are going through a period of change, no one can doubt that. Under the pressure of the internet and its myriad contributors, the purpose of pages of criticism seems less obvious as it once was to some owners and editors. In an age where everyone is willing, it seems, to express their views for nothing, and to make them universally accessible for nothing, what is the point of paying a critic to express what is only one person's opinion?

One hears, almost everywhere, gloomy prognostications of the future of newspaper criticism in its traditional form. Some newspapers have done away entirely with a standing critic of some art forms or media, and have found that the world doesn't collapse if you get rid of a television critic, say.

Last week, the much-loved and greatly admired literary editor of The Daily Telegraph, Sam Leith, was unexpectedly sacked. There is no sign that the Telegraph is planning to get rid of the books pages, although Private Eye has reported that he was told that his job was now "otiose". Nevertheless, at a party to launch the new online Book Club of The Spectator, there were plenty of people prepared to venture that the books pages, in their traditional form, had had their day. The future belonged to bloggers and the view, taken en masse, of the reviewer on amazon.com.

Read Hensher's full piece in The Independent online.