Jesse Green “assigned to a new role” at the Times

Per Variety:



The New York Times is revamping its lineup of arts and entertainment critics — replacing four of the paper’s TV, music and theater critics, who will be assigned to “new roles,” according to an internal memo obtained by Variety.

The quartet of Times critics — television critic Margaret Lyons, music critic Jon Pareles, theater critic Jesse Green and classical music critic Zach Woolfe — will “be taking on new roles, and we will be conducting a search for critics on their beats in the weeks to come,” New York Times culture editor Sia Michel wrote in a memo to staffers on Tuesday afternoon.

That was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it engagement for Green, just five years in the role by himself compared to 13 for Frank Rich and almost 20 for Brantley.

Updated On: 7/15/25 at 04:26 PM

It's strange that the Times, even in an internal memo, announced these changes before locking down the four's new roles or if they'd accept them.

TotallyEffed said: "Redwood, Critic’s Pick."

COMPANY, not a Critic’s Pick.

As it is the NYT barely even covers Off-Broadway now and they used to review almost every off-broadway show of a certain caliber

ChairinMain said: ”Jesse Greene isn't getting replaced because he liked Smash more than Boop.He, and the rest of the principle critic bench at the NYTimes, are getting replaced because the Paper is going to replace them with more social-media friendly personalities. They don't want new critical voices - they want increased engagement. They want influencers. This is incredibly disheartening.

Your argument would hold up if they were going to replace all their writers. They are choosing the writers they want to replace. They are choosing to replace Green. If they wanted him to stay they could assign him a summer intern to teach him how to use tik tok. They are choosing to replace him.

Wick3 said: "Is the "NYT Critic's Pick" still influential? If not, then I can see NYT getting rid of the position all together."

the biggest newspaper in New York City isn't going to get rid of their theater reviews all together, are you ill?

The New York Times isn't firing - or, uh, reassigning - all of its critics. None of the film critics are gone, for example. They're making choices about who is staying and who isn't. I'm as curious as anyone about the rationale, but it's probably less about quality of criticism than we would like to think. It's probably about whatever media strategy they have in mind, and whether they think their incumbent critics are well-suited for that. (Answer for today's unlucky four: No.)

My biggest concern is that I just don't trust the New York Times to make the right decisions for the right reasons.

The Times isn't going to give up on theater criticism. They still cover plenty of cultural stuff, even if some of their choices - assign theater reporter to write a profile of Jordan Roth - make my eyes roll. I don't think they are going without theater criticism. My fondest hope is that they find someone whose stuff is worth reading. I don't care whether I agree with it or not; I just want thought-provoking criticism. It's all well and good to experiment with videos and other platforms, but I fear that the new vision will downplay a good, thought-provoking written review.