Liz Hill

I don’t know who you are, but you should be ashamed of yourself for making personal comments about our journalist Christy Romer, whose private life has nothing whatsoever to do with this article. If you have something to say, stand up and be counted – don’t hide behind anonymity to fling out your criticisms and assertions. In fact Christy’s article passes no comment whatsoever on the quality of Emma Rice’s work. Indeed, he says that in words of one syllable: “This has nothing to do with the art, and everything to do with the Arts Council.” What he does is express a widely held view that the arts funding system in England favours those who have a good relationship with the Arts Council. It’s a sad fact of the arts sector that few are willing to speak out about this, and thereby risk their own funding to prove that point. Only those who do not ‘take the Arts Council’s shilling’ – as you put it – feel confident enough to speak out. The Arts Council doesn’t help itself in this respect – it was only three years ago that we reported its plans to introduce contractual terms for NPOs that would bring sanctions against anyone saying anything that might damage its reputation https://www.artsprofessional.co.uk/news/arts-council-backs-down-over-gagging-clause . After AP pointed this out, the offending clause was removed. That’s the value of independent journalism. And for the record, ArtsProfessional paid for Christy’s journalism training and qualifications, so you can rest easy that no public money was used to help train this young person to seek truth and speak out boldly when public bodies need to be held to account.