pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

xp they have addressed it, in a reddit ama iirc, but didn't exactly specify how many people weigh in on a score. it's bs

I can understand editors wanting to “consult” – so they can balance out the writer’s preferred rating against all other ratings in the mag’s history, or whatever – but not just assign a rating without the writer’s input (if that is in fact how it works).

I want them to address this specific instance. Not the practice in general.

every time this happens i feel like misinfo spreads like wildfire and i'm not sure how much i'm allowed to correct it

yah

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1767/7195/products/SnoopDo_DaGameI_CoverAr_3000DPI300RGB1000139882_1024x1024.jpg?v=1492526929

Rahawa Haile has no other bylines on Pitchfork, so it seems like the site specifically wanted an outside (black, female) perspective on the album. To then not let her decide the score makes the whole thing seem pretty suspect. A lack of trust in her judgment apart from her identity.

do individual writers ever unilaterally decide the score

...I see this is already being discussed

The 10.0’s for Radiohead are handed down on stone tablets by the Lord himself

Rahawa Haile has no other bylines on Pitchfork, so it seems like the site specifically wanted an outside (black, female) perspective on the album. To then not let her decide the score makes the whole thing seem pretty suspect. A lack of trust in her judgment apart from her identity.

uh you do realize she writes a lot A) in general B) about music C) as part of music communities, it's kind of shitty and dismissive to be like "oh it's just an identity thing" jfc

also, whenever pitchfork or anywhere else appoints a new reviews (or anything else) editor, they tend to bring on new and/or returning writers -- just today, to take another example, Brandon Stosuy has his first review in several years

i haven't written for pitchfork in a few years so maybe things have changed but i assume they have not very much (also this process is prob true for most places)

when it comes to big albums, the pitchfork brain trust decides what statement the site is going to make about the record. this opinion is gleaned from discussions among staff/freelancers and whatever other considerations need to be made (ryan's opinion etc). the review is then paired w/ a writer whose personal opinion more or less mirrors what the site is going to say. in that case, there's prob already a narrowly defined window for what the score will be... "low 8s" or something like that. you might say "i'd give this an 8.1" and you might hear back "we're going with 8.0" or whatever... most writers don't care that much about these little decimal points the way the editors have to. but there is def something tricky when an album gets a score in that range that is like "we def like this and want to say we like it, but we're not giving it best new music for whatever reason" bcuz most of the time the writer is prob a fan of the artist and will feel a bit more passionate/less measured than the site. that high 7s range for a big album from an artist the site covers a lot and likes generally is especially in a weird "this album is slightly imperfect to us for often opaque reasons" zone where as a writer you can be a bit disappointed that the score sort of mutes the enthusiasm in your review. but from an editor perspective it can be hard to find someone who is really motivated to thread that needle... generally you're going to lean towards someone w/ expertise on the artist, who is prob a fan etc. unless the process has changed drastically nobody is writing reviews w/o having a pretty specific idea of where the score is landing.

when it comes to smaller albums the scores are driven much more by the writer in my experience, to the point that they're often barely changed. what you pitch the score as/send it in as is usually what goes up.

& again this practice of brand sculpting and writer synergy is pretty standard

@katherine: Oh, spare me your bullshit fake outrage. I'm saying she looks bad in this situation, yeah, but it's because pitchfork has treated her like garbage. So own up to that mistake, instead of clutching your pearls that I dare insinuate that she looks bad. She is on twitter saying her mentions are trash, this is not a good situation she has been put in.

thanks for accusing me of "bullshit fake outrage" about a stranger internet quarterbacking about the reason someone I know was commissioned to review a record

but hey, if it was fake before, it definitely isn't fake anymore, fuck you

You're welcome. I'd happily do it again if you continue to misrepresent what I wrote.

jordan’s summary is correct

(for the record, I have written many reviews for many different sites that have caused my mentions to be trash in many different ways, and if I heard that someone was hand-wringing about how it's just so sad that obviously the only reason anyone wanted me to write about a record was because I was a woman, I would also find that person to be a piece of shit)

Frederik, you're an asshole.

Fuck you right back. I wrote 'it seems like', I was specifically criticizing the appearance that pitchfork has created.

So you can fuck off with this bullshit: someone was hand-wringing about how it's just so sad that obviously the only reason anyone wanted me to write about a record was because I was a woman

why don't you just keep quiet?

shut the fuck up fred

and in my experience it's only white dudes like you who turn into shits when their purported liberalism has been aggrieved

Well, I'm glad the pile-up brigade is here, but I'm right and katherine has continually misunderstood/-represented what I wrote. jfc indeed.

learn to back down and not be a shithead pls

have you considered that another reason someone might have their first byline at a publication is a sudden influx of free time to freelance, like the sudden influx of free time you have after releasing a book

that does not matter at all

i haven't written for pitchfork in a few years so maybe things have changed but i assume they have not very much (also this process is prob true for most places)

when it comes to big albums, the pitchfork brain trust decides what statement the site is going to make about the record. this opinion is gleaned from discussions among staff/freelancers and whatever other considerations need to be made (ryan's opinion etc). the review is then paired w/ a writer whose personal opinion more or less mirrors what the site is going to say. in that case, there's prob already a narrowly defined window for what the score will be... "low 8s" or something like that. you might say "i'd give this an 8.1" and you might hear back "we're going with 8.0" or whatever... most writers don't care that much about these little decimal points the way the editors have to. but there is def something tricky when an album gets a score in that range that is like "we def like this and want to say we like it, but we're not giving it best new music for whatever reason" bcuz most of the time the writer is prob a fan of the artist and will feel a bit more passionate/less measured than the site. that high 7s range for a big album from an artist the site covers a lot and likes generally is especially in a weird "this album is slightly imperfect to us for often opaque reasons" zone where as a writer you can be a bit disappointed that the score sort of mutes the enthusiasm in your review. but from an editor perspective it can be hard to find someone who is really motivated to thread that needle... generally you're going to lean towards someone w/ expertise on the artist, who is prob a fan etc. unless the process has changed drastically nobody is writing reviews w/o having a pretty specific idea of where the score is landing.

when it comes to smaller albums the scores are driven much more by the writer in my experience, to the point that they're often barely changed. what you pitch the score as/send it in as is usually what goes up.

& again this practice of brand sculpting and writer synergy is pretty standard

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, May 1, 2018 1:05 PM (ten minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't mind any of that process, my personal belief is that it might be the correct one. But perhaps it should be transparent with the way it operates the scoring on reviews, considering how powerful a score can be? Like yeah sure it was addressed in a reddit ama but it should be clear on the website that this is how they do it. Because right now, with the nebulous definition of 'pitchfork braintrust' it kind of feels that it is about the marketability of the album and on-site advertising more than opinion, which once again, no problem with that, as long as they are transparent about it.

I believe Rahawa Haile is fully qualified, I want her to be able to choose the grade/bnm tag as well. I criticize the fact that p4k didn't think she was qualified to do that.

anyway the only other thing I will add here is that, score-wise, the 6 range means "this is basically a fine-to-good album" and the 7 range means "this is a very good album that has a good chance of being one of the best of the year"

doubling down on your original sentiment when a couple people who know better chime in makes me nostalgic for my early 20s

nostalgic is not the right word here

also i truly believe Fred has been misunderstood here lol

whatever other considerations need to be made (ryan's opinion etc).

aka the wenner proviso

I believe she is MORE THAN QUALIFIED to do what she did, and it SEEMS LIKE IT'S tokenistic because P4K didn't trust her to do all parts of the job.

xp rjann

personally i think fred could still stand to learn when to back down

dude multiple people have literally told you in varying degrees of detail how things work for writers and scores and who does what, at this point anything else in your perception is your own

and that his reading is just this side of too cynical and that it has probably led to this "misunderstanding"

xp

The editorial process is that a very white, male group decides a statement, and then finds someone to write that statement. In this case a white/male group decided a statement about a black woman, then hired a black woman to write that statement. The solution isn't to not criticizing that hiring, it's to diversify the editorial process. Correct me if I'm wrong, but there doesn't seem to be a single black woman on the editorial staff according to the masthead (and my googling skills).

i guess where i'll say your thinking gets real swervy is assuming that rahawa didn't pitch this herself

Correct me if I'm wrong, but

x-post: Well, she's insinuating that she didn't choose the score and that it wasn't bnm'd.

The solution isn't to not criticizing that hiring, it's to diversify the editorial process.

you're also, I think, making the assumption that a more diverse editorial staff would necessarily have awarded Janelle a higher score, which......

Um, no.

i mean she's right, it's a high profile release with potential for bnm, and that's when editorial steps in to help determine the score (please reread j0rd's post). but the actual writing is her statement

xp

fred you're just getting relentlessly misunderstood in this thread and it's so hard for me to say why, does it have something to do with the clarity of your ideas / how much or little they have to do with reality

xxp No I think he’s saying that a more diverse editorial staff would have allowed the writer to pick the score in this one instance?! which...

can we move on from that?