As noted in this space last month, Cleveland Plain Dealer editor Susan Goldberg recently and unceremoniously dumped longtime music critic Don Rosenberg from the largest and most central part of his beat: covering the Cleveland Orchestra.

She did so on the grounds that he was “too negative” about music director Franz Welser-Most. Not surprisingly, there’s been an uproar about it from other music critics, led by Tim Smith of the Baltimore Sun.

Goldberg may have thought that the uproar over her move would quickly die down. Quite the contrary: Don’s demotion continues to be a source of wholly justifiable outrage in the blogosphere, and went international when Dan Wakin of the New York Times wrote about it.

Now Susan Elliott, editor of MusicalAmerica.com, has pulled all the criticism together. She links to articles by — among others — Joshua Kosman of the San Francisco Chronicle, Mark Swed of the LA Times, and pieces in the Guardian and various blogs. The consensus: it was an altogether disgraceful move on Goldberg’s part.

Well, there’s one exception to that. Under the headline “Cleveland Orchestra critic’s removal incites newspaper critics,” the Plain Dealer’s “reader representative,” Ted Diadiun writes in defense of Goldberg’s action:

…Critics are paid to criticize - and to praise when appropriate - the performance of the musicians, actors, cooks, authors, architects, linebackers and point guards they cover. Plain Dealer journalists have written critically about the Cleveland Clinic, the major sports teams, leaders in business and government, prosecutors and police chiefs and advertisers who annually spend millions of dollars with the newspaper. The objects of these critiques are not always pleased, and have often demanded that the writer be removed from the beat or fired.

Editor Goldberg, like Doug Clifton before her, always gives these people a hearing, as she should. Complaints about our coverage can and should cause editors to look more closely at what we’re doing - but while such complaints are taken seriously, not one time did either of these editors ever take someone off a beat because of outside pressure.

Should we believe that, after standing up to angry industry leaders, county commissioners, advertisers and others on issues of journalistic principle, Goldberg would wither in front of some orchestra patrons?

I don’t.

Like many of you, I am sad to lose Donald Rosenberg’s voice as orchestra critic of this newspaper. But it doesn’t follow that the decision to remove him was based on anything other than Susan Goldberg’s honest belief that the change would be in the best interests of the newspaper and its readers - a decision that is her right and responsibility to make. …

What Diadiun doesn’t mention is that Plain Dealer publisher Terry Egger (formerly publisher of the Post-Dispatch) is a member of the orchestra’s board. That creates an appearance, at least, of conflict in this situation, and one that puts the Plain Dealer squarely in the wrong.

As noted in my earlier blog post on this situation, Rosenberg is one of the most respected critics in the business, and arguably the world’s leading expert on the Cleveland Orchestra. He’s not a vindictive man, and he’s got lots of company around the world in his opinion of Welser-Most’s work. There’s really no way for the Plain Dealer to come out of this one smelling any way other than rank.

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