Carolyn Jack

Editor and CEO, Geniocity.com
A project of The Genius Group LLC

Ripples from Rosenberg’s rebuttal

Robert Finn, who preceded Donald Rosenberg as classical-music critic of The Plain Dealer, had this to say in an e-mail to an acquaintance (published here with Finn’s permission) about Rosenberg’s demotion and his subsequent suit against the newspaper and the Cleveland Orchestra’s parent organization, the Musical Arts Association:

       ” … I think there is a much wider and more important side to this whole affair, one that [g]oes far beyond contractual clauses and legal niceties. 
       It is almost a moral issue. Both the PD and the Cleveland Orchestra have disgraced themselves in this matter — the PD for living up to its longstanding reputation for caving in to outside pressures and the orchestra for exerting that pressure in the most heavy-handed Bush/Nixon style against someone whose opinions displeased it. 
      Don Rosenberg was simply doing his job. Whether you or I agree with him is quite beside the point. The main issue is that he was demoted for doing what he was hired to do. The PD cannot claim that he is incompetent — after all, they are allowing him to review all sorts of other musical events. The only issue is that the orchestra management wanted him silenced and they got their wish. I know Don well enough to say that he was simply stating his own opinion based on what he heard. There is no hidden agenda or axe-grinding going on here. The statement that he ‘attacked the orchestra’ is utterly false.
    What self-respecting critic (of music or anything else in the arts) will ever want to work for the PD after this incident, knowing that the paper does not want honest expression of opinion that might displease someone? … Arts criticism is of course a highly subjective thing. Two trained musicians can sit next to each other at the same concert and come up with sharply opposed opinions about it. Yet it is a valuable thing and should be practiced vigorously. It is not the same thing as determining who is on the take at city hall or who should play second base for the Indians. It takes specialized knowledge to write, and is always open to disagreement, provided that those who disagree can back up their arguments from their own knowledge. If it is censored by nonmusicians, it becomes worthless.
     Maybe there should be a clause in the [Newspaper] Guild [union] contract guaranteeing that management will in no way interfere with the free expression of opinion by arts critics.”

                                                                                                                         – Robt Finn