"The new Book World was just as good as the old Book World; the editors and critics who lost their jobs this week, including John Williams, Ron Charles, and Becca Rothfeld, followed in the tradition of Jonathan Yardley and Michael Dirda, the Post's Pulitzer Prize-winning stalwarts. But quality had nothing to do with the decision to cut book reviews, just as it had nothing to do with cuts in the paper's sports and international coverage."
"Rather, the Post was making the same business decision that most other publications have made. People don't want to read book reviews-at least, not enough people to make publishing them worthwhile. It's a vicious circle. As people feel less of a need to keep up with new books, they stop reading reviews; publications respond by cutting books coverage, so readers don't hear about new books; as a result, they buy fewer books, which makes publications think they're not worth covering."
The Washington Post cut its Book World supplement again amid massive layoffs. The supplement had been relaunched in 2022 after being discontinued in 2009, and long-standing critics lost their jobs. The decision to cut book coverage stemmed from business considerations rather than quality. Declining reader demand for book reviews led publishers to deem them unprofitable. That decline creates a feedback loop: fewer readers of reviews cause publications to reduce coverage, which reduces awareness of new books and depresses book sales, reinforcing perceptions that book coverage is not worthwhile.
Read at The Atlantic
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