Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar
Problems With 'Best of' Issue
RECEIVED Sun., Sept. 26, 2010
Dear Editor,
I read the Chronicle religiously because it's relevant. Yet I no longer clamor to read the “Best of Austin” issue [Sept. 3] as I did in years past. I now find it to be less relevant and more hero worship. For many categories, I already know the answer, as it is the same year after year (excepting the interesting few created in Critics Picks). I recall the Eighties and Nineties when the “BOA” issue listed the Top 10 for each voting category, and I'd recommend the Chronicle return to that process.
Austin is unique, eclectic, and diverse (dare I say, weird) – even more now as we've grown. In every category there are at least another nine victims (er, greats) worth celebrating, especially when the same winners are named year after year. I personally know of several in the dance, theatre, and performance groups around town that merit mentions yet may not ever win. And I'd love to learn of each category's new (and old) competition, even if they aren't No. 1 (and may never be).
I worked with a weekly community TV show on ACTV (now Channel Austin) that never made the Top 3 in the Best Locally Produced TV Show category (Austin City Limits has held the top spot since I moved here in 1984) but later made the Top 10 several times, along with others like Citizens Live, CapZeyeZ, HDTV, Ask Lydia, and more.
There is much to praise about what is “Best of Austin,” but it doesn't need to be an annual hero worship love-in focused solely on the No. 1 spot. As diverse as Austin is, these "lesser heroes" deserve it. Not everyone can be the hero, yet there are at least hundreds more to mention and celebrate, and The Austin Chronicle would heroically better serve Austin if it would chronicle such.
I read the Chronicle religiously because it's relevant. Yet I no longer clamor to read the “Best of Austin” issue [Sept. 3] as I did in years past. I now find it to be less relevant and more hero worship. For many categories, I already know the answer, as it is the same year after year (excepting the interesting few created in Critics Picks). I recall the Eighties and Nineties when the “BOA” issue listed the Top 10 for each voting category, and I'd recommend the Chronicle return to that process.
Austin is unique, eclectic, and diverse (dare I say, weird) – even more now as we've grown. In every category there are at least another nine victims (er, greats) worth celebrating, especially when the same winners are named year after year. I personally know of several in the dance, theatre, and performance groups around town that merit mentions yet may not ever win. And I'd love to learn of each category's new (and old) competition, even if they aren't No. 1 (and may never be).
I worked with a weekly community TV show on ACTV (now Channel Austin) that never made the Top 3 in the Best Locally Produced TV Show category (Austin City Limits has held the top spot since I moved here in 1984) but later made the Top 10 several times, along with others like Citizens Live, CapZeyeZ, HDTV, Ask Lydia, and more.
There is much to praise about what is “Best of Austin,” but it doesn't need to be an annual hero worship love-in focused solely on the No. 1 spot. As diverse as Austin is, these "lesser heroes" deserve it. Not everyone can be the hero, yet there are at least hundreds more to mention and celebrate, and The Austin Chronicle would heroically better serve Austin if it would chronicle such.
Mark Boyden
[“Best of Austin” Editor Kate X Messer responds: Our annual "Best of Austin" issue has been running since 1990. We have never run a Top 10 for each voting category. We do, however, run additional ballot contenders in our Music Poll and Restaurant Poll results issue, but never in "Best of Austin." Our annual Top 10 issues run each January, offering a look back at the previous year, but, again, we have never had anything like this in "Best of Austin." The closest we came to this was in my first year as "Best of Austin" editor, in 1996. In that year, we offered some insight into previous winners and close contenders in our Readers Poll write-ups. However, as soon as that issue came out, we felt the information odd in that context. The mission of "Best of Austin" is to celebrate winners selected by our readers and to acknowledge some of our writers' favorites, not to emphasize the competitive aspect of ballots and voting.]
