Genius and the Splintering of Arts Journalism

By: Chris Ip | CJR

The announcement that Genius, the website best known for crowdsourced explanations of rap lyrics, bagged an A-list music critic was nothing if not a little snide. “Pop Music Critic Leaves The New Yorker to Annotate Lyrics for a Start-Up,” read The New York Times headline. But the nose turning belied the significance of the move for Sasha Frere-Jones, 11-year pop music writer at the most august of arts journalism institutions, The New Yorker, who joins Genius as their new executive editor.