OPEN

Image: Thumbs down by desi.italy

Watch the frogs, some ecologists say, when they start dying we’re all in trouble. Frogs are the most sensitive to climate change because of the way the. Think of of them as the canary in the coal mine of their ecosystem.

I pay close attention to what is happening to newspapers and journalists because they are on the sharp end of the media revolution that the web is bringing about. And critics, be they film, theatre or literature specialists, may be the mot sensitive of all to change.

Food critic Jay Rayner has a considered piece about bloggers and critics in today’s Observer.

He starts off with a personal tale of when he went to lunch to review a restaurant and took Simon Majumdar a foodie blogger along with him:

Within two hours of getting back to my desk, Simon’s review was online…. The problem was that his readers would be opinion formers: not just chefs, restaurateurs and food journalists but other hardcore restaurant goers. And when my review was printed almost three weeks later they would all assume I was the one who had taken my lead from Simon rather than the other way round; that the real finds were being made by the amateurs.

Luckily for Rayner his blogger friend agreed to take down his post on this occasion, but it prompted some serious reflection on the part of the professional critic.

The article takes in interviews with a good number of critics and bloggers alike. Very much worth a look – and there’s some healthy debate (naturally) on the Guardian’s blog’s comment section.

Keep an eye on what happens to paid media critics. How they morph, adapt survive or otherwise may tell us a lot about where the rest of the media ecosytem is headed.