Guess who’s in for a little criticism?

When art critic Emily Genauer died last August at 91, obituaries dutifully noted that she had received the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 1974. What they didn’t say is that she’s the only newspaper art critic ever to win it.

Initiated in 1970, the Pulitzer in criticism has most often gone to book reviewers and music critics, who have received fully half the awards. Once it went to a critic who occasionally wrote about art (but mostly about opera), and once it went to a writer on the specialized subject of photography. But Genauer, who won while working at Newsday, remains the roster’s lone art critic in more than 30 years.

Now I think I know why. Last week, a survey of 169 art critics at general-interest news publications across America was published by the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University (the school, coincidentally, that hosts the Pulitzers). The 71-page report noted that in the majority of the surveyed publications, large and small, the visual arts generally receive less than half the coverage of books or music. (Art coverage averages 6% of editorial space.) But sheer quantity of articles, which surely ups the statistical chances, wouldn’t seem to explain the qualitative phenomenon.

Here’s what does: By and large, journalistic art critics don’t write art criticism.

That’s the stunning conclusion that emerges -- almost between the lines -- of this wide-ranging, unprecedented study of the field. The report is based on responses to a lengthy questionnaire from 123 critics at daily papers, 43 at alternative weeklies and three at national newsmagazines. It includes lots of inside-baseball stats, of possible interest mostly to art critics and journalists. (You can read it online at www.najp.org.) But one factoid deserves wide exposure.

A critic, the report notes in a quote from the American Heritage Dictionary, is one who forms and expresses judgments of the merits, faults, value or truth of a matter. Yet only 27% of survey participants said they place a great deal of emphasis on forming and expressing those judgments. Twenty-seven percent!

In fact, of five aspects of reviewing queried in the survey, making judgments ranked at the bottom. Far greater weight was given to important but nonetheless routine concerns, like offering accurate descriptions of art and exhibitions and providing historical background.

The smaller the newspaper, the less interested critics were in writing actual criticism (only 18% of writers at papers with circulations of less than 110,000). It’s not hard to see why: Provincial social attitudes can be brutal. For several years a friend in a small town wrote thoughtful and penetrating weekly commentaries on art subjects for the local paper -- and was duly ostracized by the region’s insular art world for having the temerity to speak her mind. Eventually she gave up, left the field (and the town) and became a successful art museum curator.

Americans don’t much like art, so a bunker mentality can prevail in the art world. (It’s us against them, and a critic better be with us.) One participant in the survey succinctly described the problem: “I wish I could write using a pseudonym. If I write anything negative in this Midwestern town where I now live, either I or my husband are punished in all sorts of interesting ways.” Since the majority of journalistic critics are part-time freelancers, who can blame them for flinching at small-minded abuse?

Even more disturbing, though: It isn’t just small markets where journalistic art critics are avoiding criticism. Significantly fewer than half of those at large papers said that making judgments is a high priority. Since Genauer’s day, the art world has exploded into a global multibillion-dollar industry, in which critical acuity would seem more necessary than ever. But critics appear to have buckled under the force of its big bang.

So, if they’re not writing criticism, what are America’s journalistic art critics scribbling in the pages of their newspapers, alternative weeklies and weekly newsmagazines? Miniature schoolbooks, apparently. In overwhelming numbers, journalistic art critics see themselves primarily as educators. No fewer than 91% said they see their role as not just informing readers about visual art but educating them.

The goal sounds benign, but its courtly arrogance is actually astounding. When a writer begins with the presumption that the reader is uneducated about the subject -- or at least not as well educated as he -- be prepared to be bored silly by what is written. Worse, a creeping tone of superciliousness is almost impossible to escape.

The problem grows acute in the Age of the Internet, when access to news is less bound by the geographic issues of distribution that historically circumscribed newspapers. At every waking moment, any sane writer ought to be aware that somewhere, out in the ether, lurk readers who know a hell of a lot more about the particular subject of his discourse than he will ever know. Condescend to them and you’re toast.

Besides, criticism is a considered argument about art, not a priestly initiation of the unenlightened into a catechism of established knowledge. Education is a lavishly funded bane of today’s increasingly institutionalized art world, where Puritan exhortations about the value of learning over sensuous experience and unruly imagination regularly destroy art’s singular worth. Apparently the epidemic has spread, laying low the nation’s art journalists.

And, speaking of journalism, there are solid journalistic reasons why the sentiment should make us queasy. Art critics, like those in other disciplines, walk a precarious line. On one hand, close and active participation in the scene can sometimes be indispensable to informed judgment. On the other, they need to keep an arm’s length from the field, avoiding entanglements that can create journalistic conflicts of interest. The report correctly notes that art critics who see themselves as educators have already positioned themselves as stakeholders and champions of the beat they cover. Shills occupy an uncommon place in a newsroom, especially at a daily paper.

In the interest of full disclosure, by the way, I should add here that I did not participate in the survey, which was conducted on the Internet in March. Not that I wasn’t asked and didn’t try. To secure the electronic questionnaire from prying art critical hackers, the organization devised an elaborate numerical code, one for each of the participants, who could then visit the Web site at their leisure. I spent a few hours answering some questions; when I came back at the end of the month to finish up, I discovered that my entire questionnaire had been completed. (The answers of course were horrifying.) It turns out that the organization had mistakenly given the same individual secret code to more than one person.

A mortified Columbia spokeswoman insisted that the error was an anomaly and that the integrity of the survey hadn’t been compromised. I’m inclined to take her at her word.

But let it be known that, had I been able to participate, the number of America’s working journalistic art critics claiming “educator” as their job description would have been only 90%, not 91%.

I decided to put the question to the New Yorker magazine’s Peter Schjeldahl, because he’s the writer who topped the survey respondents’ list of most influential art critics working today. What about it, I asked; do you think of yourself as an educator?

“Absolutely not,” Schjeldahl said, punching every syllable. Furthermore, he said, “I refuse to accept any responsibility for anything anybody might claim to have learned from my criticism.”

I confess I knew in advance that he would answer that way, since we’ve discussed the canard many times in the past. But just wait until his legions of adoring, education-besotted colleagues find out!