Rarely do newspapers designate a reporter to write about just one artist. However, Beyoncé and Taylor Swift continue to set records on their tours, making them cultural forces.
The biggest newspaper company in the US, Gannett, has announced that it will hire reporters to cover Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, two of the biggest stars in music.
Gannett said in separate announcements on Tuesday and Wednesday that it was looking for two reporters who could capture the significance of their music, their growing legacies, and the impact both women have had across the music industry. This announcement came amid the fervor surrounding both artists’ record-breaking tours this year.
The two journalists would work for USA Today and The Tennessean, the publisher’s paper in Nashville, where Swift launched her career as a country diva before selling out arenas all across North America on her record-breaking Eras Tour.
According to the job description for the Beyoncé reporting position, published by Gannett on Wednesday, the publication is looking for a reporter who can examine how the “international superstar and icon’s impact is felt across generations” and how she has “been a force in everything from how the country views race to how women think about their partners.”
According to a story from Gannett on Tuesday, the Swift writer would have to “identify why the pop star’s influence only expands, what her fan base stands for in pop culture.”
The positions are a reflection of the crazed fanaticism that has engulfed both Swift and Beyoncé, who is also presently on a world tour.
Img: Beyoncé And Taylor Swift
Swift’s cultural impact, even with the re-recordings of her older songs, continues to grow with each album. At one show, her supporters rocked the ground so violently that it registered as an earthquake on a seismometer close to Seattle, costing thousands of dollars in concert tickets.
Beyoncé supporters swarm stadiums with silver and glittering hats and boots while dressed as cosmic cowboys and cowgirls for her concerts. They pay attention to her subtle cues, and when she sings the phrase, “Look around everybody on mute,” from the song “Energy,” they all stop talking. They have also raised blue balloons to honor performances by her daughter, Blue Ivy Carter. According to Billboard, her Renaissance World Tour’s July box office take was the most ever for a single month.
The Swift job posting on Tuesday received mixed responses, with some praising Gannett for trying to reach a new audience and others criticizing the firm for recent mass layoffs of local journalists.
The USA Today Network, which is owned by Gannett, is dedicated to providing its readers with critical journalism, and that “includes giving our audience the content they crave,” according to Kristin Roberts, chief content officer of Gannett.
According to Ms. Roberts, “Taylor Swift’s fan base has increased to previously unheard-of heights, and with it has come an increase in the music industry’s and our culture’s reliance on her music and growing legacy.” “She is shaping a generation and is relevant, influential, and innovative — just like us.”
Img: Beyoncé And Taylor Swift
Newspapers frequently hire critics of music and entertainment reporters, but they infrequently designate a reporter to focus on one particular musician.
But Swift’s success has proven to be a significant cultural and economic force this summer.
Swift followers, or Swifties, are said to have increased hotel sales in the Philadelphia area, according to a Federal Reserve survey of business contacts. Swift, 33, and her promoters do not publicly disclose box office totals, but according to an estimate by the trade journal Pollstar, she has been selling around $14 million worth of tickets per night. Swift’s sales could surpass Elton John’s $939 million for his multiyear farewell tour, the current record holder, by the time her planned world tour, which is scheduled with 146 stadium performances long into 2024, comes to a close.
ALSO READ: New IMAX Teaser And Poster For The Marvels.
Concerns regarding Gannett’s reporting priorities have been voiced by certain journalists. In December of last year, Gannett reduced its 3,440-person U.S. media division workforce by around 6%. According to media observers, the decision might worsen the situation of the local news industry, which has declined in recent years and left many communities in the country without access to reliable information.
Img: Beyoncé And Taylor Swift
While Nashville is getting a Swift reporter, Memphis is still lacking an investigative reporter, Chalkbeat Tennessee reporter Laura D. Testino noted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
According to Ms. Roberts, Gannett has employed 225 journalists since March and currently has more than 100 unfilled positions.
According to Robert Thompson, the director of Syracuse University’s Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture, hiring for such specialized beats “is not as absurd as it looks at first glance.”
The value of the one thing that emerges that almost everyone can comment on increases in a cultural setting where “mass culture has broken up into a million little pieces,” as he put it.
Taylor Swift must be accepted on some level for a person to be conscious in the United States, according to Dr. Thompson. He continued, saying that reporting on someone like her is a “perfectly sound activity for a journalist to be doing.”
Img: Beyoncé And Taylor Swift
The largest concert of Beyoncé and Taylor Swift in 2023
For months, Beyoncé’s “Renaissance World Tour” and Taylor Swift’s “Eras” tours have been selling out stadiums, with fans shelling out up to thousands of dollars for front-row seats to watch two adored artists at the height of their game.
In addition to drawing A-listers like Paul McCartney, Ariana Grande, Nicole Kidman, and yes, “Barbie” director Greta Gerwig, the tours are cultural behemoths that bolster the economies of each city they visit. Both tours should generate far over $1 billion in revenue.
The two biggest entertainment events of 2023 by Beyoncé And Taylor Swift: Beyoncé ending her tour in Kansas City in October and Swift beginning her worldwide appearances this week in Mexico.
Taylor Swift
Taylor Alison Swift, an American singer-songwriter, was born on December 13, 1989. She is a significant cultural figure of the twenty-first century known for her songwriting, musical variety, artistic reinventions, and influence on the music business.
Do you want to know more about Taylor Swift, click here.
Beyoncé
As a young child, Beyoncé began participating in numerous singing and dancing competitions. As a member of the R&B girl group Destiny’s Child, one of the most successful girl groups of all time, she gained notoriety in the late 1990s. During their break, her debut album, Dangerously in Love, was released. B’Day (2006), I Am… Sasha Fierce (2008), and 4 (2011) were her next three commercially successful solo albums. Beyoncé’s artistry received widespread acclaim in the mid- to late-2010s after she founded her own management company Parkwood Entertainment and released the sonically experimental visual albums Beyoncé (2013) and Lemonade (2016), which explored various societal themes like infidelity, feminism, and womanism. After the successful release of the dance record Renaissance (2022) with LGBT themes, She made history by being the first solo artist to have all seven of their studio albums debut at number one in the US.
Do you want to know more about Beyoncé, click here.
ALSO READ: According To Amber Heard’s Book, Elon Musk’s Brother And Friends “Hated” Her “With A Passion”.
Image Source: Instagram, google
