Cathy Fox talks ArtsCriticATL.com

Our current arts feature aks the question, “Arts bloggers: knowledge or noise?” After accepting the buyout last year at the AJC, arts critic Cathy Fox, along with classical music critic Pierre Ruhe, started ArtsCriticATL.com. It’s quickly become a respected resource for local arts news and criticism. Here she discusses the transition and the pros and cons of running a blog.

Tell me about your blog.

Pierre Ruhe and I — Pierre is a classical music critic — started it shortly after we both took the [http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/freshloaf/2009/04/13/ajc-buyout-list-official/|buyout from the Atlanta Journal Constitution, May 1]. Our idea was to fill the gap that the loss of coverage at the AJC — or the diminishing coverage of the AJC — left in the community. We’re both newspaper people, and so we looked at it from that perspective, and we wanted it to be a journal with all the smorgasbord of writers and topics. So, that was how we started, and we have built up a group of contributors. At this point nobody is earning any money from this venture. But I have been very heartened by the enthusiastic response that we’ve gotten from people, that there does seem to be a need. I’m not sure how large the need is. ... But certainly in terms of interest and enthusiasm, there’s been a huge response to it.