Letter to the Editor

Re: Changes to the Salon Section

We urge you to reconsider recent changes to Salon, the Telegraph-Journal’s excellent Saturday arts section, whose focus is now general human-interest stories. Creativity is New Brunswick’s greatest natural resource – and Salon got that. It is not only the intellectual elite that are interested in arts, culture, and heritage. 99.7 % of NBers participate in arts and culture activities, according to Hill Strategies Research.

More than 12,000 New Brunswickers work in the culture sector, which includes creative and performing arts, and the industries that support them, such as festivals, filmmaking, publishing, music recording, galleries, museums, historic sites, arts presenters, design firms, and much more. This is more than those working in fisheries, mining, and oil and gas combined. The Culture Sector contributed $910 million to this province’s GDP in 2010 (MQO Research), up from over $723 million in 2000.

Salonoffered a cross-cultural intersection that fostered cohesion and mutual appreciation between Anglophone, Acadian, Aboriginal, and new NBers. It was a showcase that elevated our provincial profile. Since 2007, Salon features have won 3 National Newspaper Awards (NNAs) in the Arts and Entertainment categories, beating out much larger papers like the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star. These were first ever wins for the Telegraph Journal in this category, and account for nearly half of the total 7 NNAs the paper has won.

Arts and culture reflect who we are to ourselves and the rest of the world. The Telegraph Journal got Salon right the first time.

Respectfully,

Akoulina Connell, Executive Director, artsnb

Kathy Hamer, President, ArtsLink

Philippe Beaulieu, President, Association acadienne des artistes professionnel.le.s du Nouveau-Brunswck