Douglas McLennan

The Kennedy Center is a treasure. Not just for what it has been, but because of what it represents. But the practicalities of providing a roof for a bunch of artistic enterprises that essentially h…

This notion that the ultimate measure of American educational value is economic is an impoverishing one. We measure for success. If that measure is earnings then we optimize for earnings. Social va…

Last week we collected 126 stories. Here's what I learned A growing chorus of critics is asking if we've hit a creative dead end in the 21st Century.

A troubling story that says a lot about where our culture is right now. We're now focused on “doping tests” to determine if artists have cheated. Rather than pee in a bottle, however, we're depending on AI detector tools and documentary proof of human creation. Did the Foundation double down to ask what's the best writing? No. They cared more about how it was made. Perhaps that's important. Of course it is. But, in a way, it's now an impossible question. Moreover, it may ultimately be the wrong question.

When you look across the culture at what is gaining traction, some common themes emerge. They sell occasion, they sell belonging, and interestingly, they sell permission.

This notion that the ultimate measure of American education is economic is an impoverishing one. We measure for success. If that measure is earnings then we optimize for earnings. Social value measured on an earnings scale doesn't just get deprioritized, it doesn't exist. But we need that social value. So we “subsidize” it, turning it into charity that can't exist on its own. Then the conservative mindset spins those subsidies as luxuries we can't afford, so there's ongoing pressure to eliminate them. What began as a values debate becomes a fiscal debate argued around a measurement scale that doesn't measure values. If you're in the arts, this argument should sound very familiar.

That sounds scary, coming from one of theatre's most prominent executives. But it fits with a wave of closures and collapses across the arts — particularly in theaters — in the past year.

We collected 127 stories on ArtsJournal last week. Here's what I learned. A couple of weeks ago, I got a PR pitch from a theatre.

Last week Publishers Weekly reported that the number of books published with ISBN numbers in the US in 2025 had jumped by 32 percent over the previous year to more than 4 million titles.

Twenty-five years ago the digital revolution rewrote the ways culture gets found, valued and paid for. The battles were fought in a series of skirmishes over disruptive technologies that remade the ways creative marketplaces were organized.