As Digital Discourse Turns to a Din, Art Critics’ Clarity Will Be More Essential

When I got an offer to move halfway across the country to work for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in 2000, I had a life that looked a lot like the one I always wanted. I lived in New York and was writing and editing for a successful dot-com. I had an enviable sublet in Midtown and had carved out a new beat covering technology and privacy in the midst of the early online boom.
What made me choose to give it all up and leave for Wisconsin was the intoxicating idea of writing about art. I had writt