BEA panel asks: Do book critics need an ethics code?

The National Book Critics Circle recently surveyed reviewers about whether ethics guidelines are necessary for the industry.

|
Mark Lennihan/AP
Book Expo America attendees wait to have books autographed.

Just about every industry has rules and standards that its workers are expected to abide by in order to succeed at their jobs and uphold the reputation of their professions. 

Should that be the case with book critics as well?

A panel was held yesterday at this year's Book Expo America (in New York from May 28-June 1) to debate what a code of conduct for book reviewers would look like. As the journalism industry changes, standards are changing with it, including what makes up a book review, and even veterans of the business are finding the ground shifting under their feet.

The National Book Critics Circle surveyed reviewers recently and its findings will become available this fall. After that, according to Time Magazine, the NBCC will release what it considers to be best practices for critics.

NBCC board of directors member Marcela Valdes served as moderator for the panel at BEA. Participants included NPR book critic Maureen Corrigan, Paris Review editor Lorin Stein, and literary agent Eric Simonoff.

Corrigan stressed the importance of objectivity, impartiality, and fairness in book reviewing (which, she also noted, are not synonymous terms). But what gets tricky, it seems, is arriving at a common definition of these words. Exactly how impartial and objective must a critic be?

“It’s kind of the Wild West these days,” Valdes noted of the book review industry during the panel.

Some of the data from the NBCC survey was discussed during the panel as well, and it was revealed that more than 62 percent of respondents said it was acceptable for a critic to refuse to review something he or she dislikes.

Apart from our obvious stake in the matter, we’ll be interested to see what this discussion means for the literary journalism industry.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to BEA panel asks: Do book critics need an ethics code?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2013/0531/BEA-panel-asks-Do-book-critics-need-an-ethics-code
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe