James Poniewozik - Page 10
I’m The New York Times’s chief TV critic, which means I have the largest beat in the world. If you can see it on a screen, there’s a good chance I might write about it.
What I Cover
I write essays and reviews about television and how it speaks to things people care about, whether that’s current politics or the timeless human condition. There’s a lot of TV nowadays and seemingly endless sources of opinions. So rather than give thumbs-up-thumbs-down ratings of everything that comes across my desk, I focus more on the big picture, finding how interesting works connect to each other and to the larger world. (And both prestigious TV and unashamed junk can be interesting!) But when I find something special that I love, or hate in a way that’s worth mentioning, I will let you know about that too. Culture is powerful — it lives in our subconscious, alongside our dreams — and I treat it that way, while also keeping a sense of humor about it.
My Background
I joined The Times in 2015. Before that, I was the TV and media critic for Time magazine and a media columnist for Salon. I’ve also contributed to Fortune, Bookforum and NPR, among others. I’m also the author of the book “Audience of One: Donald Trump, Television and the Fracturing of America” (2019). I’m a native of Michigan and graduate of the University of Michigan, where I got a bachelor’s degree in English, yet still managed to end up gainfully employed.
Journalistic Ethics
Like all Times journalists, I am bound to our ethics guidelines. For me, these include recusing myself when I have a personal connection to an artist and not advising people on TV projects. (I avoid hobnobbing with people in the biz generally.) But my biggest ethical obligation to you is honesty. This means getting my facts right, of course. But it also means giving my authentic response, without worrying whether an artist, or my reader, or the internet will agree. It means knowing that criticism is subjective — it involves personal, individual, even moral opinion — but it needs to be grounded in reason and evidence. It means not deciding what I think before I’ve seen something. And it means writing about all the reasons that whatever I’m writing about matters; you can’t separate art from the society in which it’s created, and it’s dishonest to the reader to pretend that you can.
Contact Me
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