Defend or impugn a critic's honesty? I just read Peter Borelli's post. It's an interesting dilemma. A critic's value is directly proportionate to the trust readers have in his opinion. That seems obvious. Proving a critic's honesty however is rather more difficult. As with a recording session, we are not present to witness what's going on. We're presented with an end result. At best we can triangulate what other reviewers say about the same piece and track a writer's consistency. But even that is guesswork. What if he's consistently lying, exaggerating or making things up? He still is consistent, just in a bad way. It's for that reason and more that I'm looking at reviews mostly for entertainment. Reviews keep me in the loop so I'm up to date on new hardware, trends and tech. If, as you would put it, once in a blue moon and not every month a writer gets truly excited, I'm more prepared to bookmark that review should the time come to buy something. In any event, Peter's email about perceived honesty just made me wonder once again how any of us could possibly have a handle on it. At the end of the day, it's all pure hearsay. You say something, I wasn't there. So I can choose to believe you or not. If I keep reading someone, I choose to believe them. Why bother otherwise? But I can't prove my response either way. It's just a gut instinct. What do you think? I'm sure you must have an opinion. ATB, Craig B.
I concur completely. For most, reading reviews is its own hobby. It's not primarily about purchase decisions but entertainment. That's why in my mind, a review should mix entertainment and education to have a reader walk away more informed and otherwise just a bit inspired or made to think. Disagreeing with a theory, presentation or finding is just as involving as agreeing with it, arguably more so. There just must be enough substance to dig one's teeth into; and clarity to understand the argument in the first place. Like you said, honesty can't be proven unless we were present during a review session to compare what actually happened against what ended up published. But even to say "what happened" includes tons of subjectivity in the reviewer's head which we won't be privy to; never mind that it could conflict with what went on in our own head (ear/brain) at the same time.
Whether people trust me or not isn't really my concern. It's to create content I'm happy to publish. That has to speak for itself. It either succeeds or fails. Which of the two is up to each and every reader. My assumption always is that if someone keeps coming back for more, they must be getting something out of it. And something is already more than nothing. In my book that's a win. After 20 years of doing this, I'm still here. Clearly there's sufficient readers who get just enough out of reading us to keep coming back. That's good enough for me. All the rest is for the readers to debate amongst themselves. If Peter's friend doesn't believe him or me, that's his right, choice and decision. That too is part of the whole review entertainment game. Review the reviewers. Play gotcha. Call out someone's opinion, name, appearance, room, taste in music or hardware. All of it is fair game these days. One needs good humor and a thicker skin to stick it out. Thankfully I enjoy the hell out of writing. Whatever unpleasant noise it might generate here or there is simply the price to pay for the privilege of making a purely self-taught living. Srajan
