What will our relaunch look like? Part 1, content

News
For those of you who just want a summary of the major content changes on MinnesotaPlaylist scroll to the italicized sentence 2/3 of the way down. For those of you who like a few words of introduction and stuff to chew on, read on: In case you haven't heard, good journalism is dying. What is that German word, Schadenfreude, meaning to enjoy the pain of others? Though I feel a bit dirty about it, don't you feel that performing artists are entitled to just a little schadenfreude on this subject? Last Friday, I got to enjoy the desperate, ignorant optimism and you-can-prick-me-with-a-paper-clip defensiveness that I recognize in most young theater artists I know, but, for once, I got to enjoy that it coming out of the mouths of seasoned arts journalists. In case you don't read the newspapers -- and it's a fair bet that you don't read the newspapers anymore -- newspapers are dying in much the same way that theater has been dying since, I don't know, since a lot longer than I can remember. Less and less people seem to want to pay for the experience while, ironically, more and more people think it would be pretty fun to make a living in the industry. Arts journalists are losing full-time, salaried positions at much faster rates than other parts of newspapers (where in general full-time salaried positions are getting lost more often than car keys). Last Friday, the National Arts Journalism Program hosted a summit called "The Future of Arts Journalism" and the Walker Arts Center hosted a satellite meeting of the summit up in their 9th floor conference room where local reporters like Matt Peiken, Chris Roberts, Marya Morstad, etc., gathered to watch the speakers and presentations in California through live streaming video. The general vibe seemed to revolve around questions like "Why aren't we treated like professionals? Why shouldn't we expect to get paid decent wages? How can we use these new technologies to increase our reach and relevance?" Is it schadenfreude or something else that, while I sat there, I occasionally mistook the experience for a performing arts conference? While I was watching, as with a performing arts conference, I heard a lot more discussion about methods of delivering content than I heard about the content itself - as though the product we make is, of course, excellent, and we're only dying because we have bad marketing departments or distribution methods. Argh! In both the theater and journalism, I too often see smart, good people flailing around for the reasons why the work they do isn't taking off and looking at every corner besides the one they have the most knowledge about. "The fault is in our stars, not ourselves," we like to say. We're doing a great job; we must be. We're smart and good. The problem of declining revenue or attendance or interest must be marketing or technology or something besides the actual content we create. What is my point? Why am I thinking of these things? Because a year ago, when we started this website, we hoped to offer more thoughtful, in-depth, respectful and fun coverage of the performing arts in Minnesota. After a year, we've learned some things about, yes, how content needs to be delivered on the web but also what kind of content really is most worthwhile. We've also discovered how genuinely hard it is to do good arts journalism (how much time and therefore money it costs) - which is not an excuse, which doesn't excuse us or anyone else - I just mention it to point out that we've learned some stuff, and now we're going to try to apply it. As a result, here's what we're doing with MinnesotaPlaylist content on our one year anniversary: We're keeping the monthly issue focus, but we're going to create a specific blog each month that will provide a daily, or almost daily, in-depth dose of information on that topic. Through this blog, we hope to provide both analytical, researched, and useful content in easily-digestibly small bites that increase in context and significance as the month marches on. We're keeping the articles from artists around the state but, since we hope to be interviewing more artists in our in-depth blog, we'll be cutting down the number of artist articles, but we hope, increasing their quality. We're making our "News and Notes" blog more prominent, so you don't miss the information you need. We're also adding a post-show blog for quick impressions of what its like to experience the performing arts culture in Minnesota. We're calling that Afterwords. And, when we can, we want to provide some in-depth coverage of breaking news too, so we'll have room for a "Special Focus" blog/section in our new layout. But, wait, there's more: Because we know that people always need more information about theater before they go see it - and we know performing artists desperately want them to have as much information as they need - we'll be making the performance calendar more prominent, and we'll be launching audience reviews within the next week. We'll also aggregate the local critic's reviews, so you can get a quick hit on what they think and link back to their article if you want. Broadly defined, these are the major content changes we'll be instituting as soon as possible. Tomorrow, I'll explain some additional services. (How the hell can we afford to do this, you ask? Good question.)
Alan M. Berks

Alan M. Berks is a Minneapolis-based writer whose plays have been seen in New York, Chicago, Phoenix, Indianapolis, San Francisco, and around the Twin Cities. He helped create Thirst Theater a while back. Now, he’s the co-founder of this here magazine. He’s also written Almost Exactly Like Us, How to Cheat, 3 Parts Dead, Goats, and more.