Thoroughly cheesed off to read in the latest edition of the Guardian Media guide that Grace Dent is leaving.
Not only that, but she claims that she is being replaced not by another proper professional reviewer, but by reader contributions supplemented by copy generated by 'android pigs with hats on' (must remember to check this quote again and amend if necessary, rather than spend ages online reading the latest developments in the extremely disturbing Anders Behring Breivik trial and attempting to find out how the hell the bloody appalling man has managed to get himself any fans at all, let alone a German woman penfriend who might have even fallen in love with him).
In other words, those tight-fisted buggers on the Guardian are desperately trying to save money by cutting down on the number of qualified experts they employ. The excuse they are going to use is that they want to make the paper more 'interactive' and 'user-friendly', because the advent of the Internet has turned everyone who watches telly (aka 'downloads content' - yuck, horrible modern techno-bollockese phrase de jour) into a critic.
Enter endless screeds of rabid fanboy dork-dribble, half-illiterate two-word summaries that tell you five fifths of fuck-all about the programme and hordes of students doing unpaid work experience who reckon the best way to create a reputation is by doing word-perfect impressions of Charlie Brooker circa 2003.
Grace is right to describe television as an artform that deserves to be taken seriously. If the Guardian agrees with her conclusion, then they should be prepared to splash out on a full-time, appropriately experienced and qualified reviewer.
And if they claim to support up and coming new journalists, then they should be coughing up the going NUJ rates for every piece of copy that the work experience bods knock up. Plus a full byline.
