I understand Canwest’s troubled history, having entered bankruptcy protection in late 2009, and selling its newspaper arm to creditors headed by National Post’s CEO Paul Godfrey. But the person from this new regime who has dictated that the Ottawa Citizen can no longer review ‘non-professional’ art forms has made a grave mistake. The vibrant sheen of our cultural community is presently being quietly diminished due to some asinine manager who lives, no doubt, in Toronto. Having said that, the people who are in charge of the Citizen must realize that this decision will have an adverse effect on their enlightened readership until a creative solution rectifies this lack of reportage. The idea of not covering such groups as the Ottawa Little Theatre, Savoy Society, Orpheus Musical Theatre Society, Ottawa Choral Society, Cantata Singers of Ottawa, Ottawa Bach Choir, Seventeen Voyces, and the Canadian Centennial Choir is an irresponsible one and only does Ottawa and its denizens an egregious disservice – culturally, socially and economically. I personally don’t care about Brad Pitt’s moustache, Mariah Carey’s strapless dresses (okay, maybe a little bit) or Lindsay Lohan’s latest lock-up, but I know that those of us who have worked in the trenches of the local arts’ scene for most of our professional adult lives feel completely betrayed. The Ottawa Citizen’s Arts & Entertainment section is rapidly becoming a wire-serviced American tabloid for the same reasons CBC Radio 2 became a vast, fatuous wasteland – near-sighted Philistinism.
Kevin Reeves
Seventeen Voyces, Director
Ottawa Regional Youth Choir, Director
Ottawa Choral Society, Associate Director
Former Citizen Subscriber
