From Progression Magazine

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   "Others (sites) (though tempted, I won't name
names) are profit driven enterprises run by .journalistically ignorant computer jockeys, whose notion of
content is glitzy graphics festooning bloated archives of unedited
laymen's opinions".
- from the editorial in Progression #58

A shot aimed at our mor or less dear site methinks. It's a good thing that Progression magazine has some competition these days I'd say.

Whatever one might feel about letting laymen voice their opinions rather than more or less educated journalists, that one was a cheap shot. Furthermore, with some experience from serious journalism myself I'll have to say that descriptions such as this one is a rather good example of a low quality journalistic analysis - as far as journalistic traditions go much closer to The Sun or Daily Sports than The Time or The Guardian to put it that way.

In short - I'm not impressed by such a cheap shot from a person who thinks of himself as a serious journalist. Especially when he, accordiong to some sources of mine, tries to get other to go along to add weight to his personal stance here.

What to do about it?

I subscribe to Classic Rock's prog mag these days. A tad superficial and glitzy, but a good read. For those who desire more thorough reading catering for artists less known there's also a very good magazine called Acid Dragon. The latter a really affordable publication as well.

I'd recommend current Progression subscribers to check out those alternatives. Those who love Progression - of which I know there are quite a few - some letters or emails to the editor complaining about the journalistic lacks of such a cheap comment might come in handy.

When that is said: This doesn't mean that I regard this website as perfect by any means. There's quite a lot of positive but also negative points about this website. The same goes for all other websites though. But if you're out to mark your own or others superiority over another publication/website/whatever, good journalistic traditions demands that you point of what's good and not good in a rather more analytical fashion.

Then again - the main negative point of this website is that everybody can write reviews. Some are good, some are not. Good ones may be badly written and bad ones may be rather well written. But on the positive side I'd point out the fact that everybody -can- in fact voice their opinion. In the Progression magazine on the other hand, a chosen few gets to voice their opinion. Using a rather elaborate system trying to make subjective opinions come acoss as objective. Personally I find that approach rather shallow, as well as old-fashioned - a system made for the elitist few to tell the masses what's good or not and hiding the subjectivity of the very personal reasoning behind the opinions and ratings. Some prefer it that way though, and it is a highly established way of doing reviews - one which the music business loves and have utilized and used to their advantage since the sale of music to the public on recorded formats became a sustainable business venture.

A sidetrack there, but also an example of everything that's lacking in the truly shallow and rather cowardly snide remark in the editorial of the latest Progression magazine. 

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