My "Big Question," today at All About Jazz: "Is It OK for artists to pay writers for reviews?" Note/ please post your comments at AAJ.
When did it become acceptable or common practice for artists to pay for an album review?
Recently, All About Jazz writers have been asked by artists--and with increasing regularity--if they would write an album review for pay. We have also encountered writers actively soliciting musicians to pay for reviews... and we think that's wrong.
All About Jazz has a strict conflict of interest policy: those paid in any capacity surrounding a release--liner notes, press sheets, biographies or photos--are automatically precluded from reviewing that recording at AAJ. The same policy also precludes artists from paying contributors to write a review.
Why? If readers found out a writer had been paid by the artist--or anyone directly involved in the recording--it would be completely understandable for them to question not just the writer's objectivity, but the website's as well. How can a writer submit a review to a publication, having been paid to do so by someone directly linked to the release in question, with any kind of objective distance? After all, would a musician be prepared to pay a writer for a bad review?
But beyond AAJ, it's simply bad practice for writers to accept--or worse, yet, solicit--payment for a review from the artist. Liner notes, press sheets, bios? Sure, no problem--it's long been AAJ's experience that its writers get such gigs as a direct consequence of what they publish at AAJ. Critical writing, however, must be absolutely objective and distanced from the artist, something that's impossible when money's changing hands.
Continue reading and out your opinion here
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