A critique of a critic

Stephen King had a lovely article in Entertainment Weekly last 17 January 2005 on how a female newspaper writer reviewed a book that he thought was ok. He gave me words to direct at the number of questionable articles I’ve read through the years by people who are actually paid by newspapers or magazines to share their thoughts with the public. He says, “Any critic can dislike anything he or she wants. Hell, it’s what makes America great. What I don’t like was the ignorance of American Popular Fiction displayed in her essay. What made me crazy was the condescending who-cares-anyway tone. The final message of too many self-anointed critical smarties, whether stated or implied, seems to be, we don’t really need to read this stuff to know it’s junk, do we?” ;)