The Kama Sutra of Journalism

There is a story told by veteran movie producer Saul Zaentz the punch line of which is that producing movies is like the Kama Sutra – there are 10,000 ways to get screwed (he used a saltier expression) and each one is different.

Although much of the focus of the economic downturn tsunami hitting journalism has focused on the loss of jobs, in the last week what I’ve noticed for the first time, and experienced first hand, puts me a loss for words — literally. What I mean to say is that publications are cutting down on the length of articles for space concerns, and that is being done for financial concerns. Whether it is because of a changed ad to edit ratio, or less pages, it’s happening all over.

It used to be that the fun of writing for alternative or community newspapers was that they let you write what you wanted at the length you saw fit (within reason). Now, even that seems to be eroding.

Roger Ebert just wrote a column explaining that AP wants to limit movie reviews and cultural items to 500 words and focus more on celebrity news than criticism.

Kama Sutra indeed, More like “le petit mort.”

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