IdleRich
IdleRich
That's one thing. And I see Xeno's point above... a review is always about the reviewer anyway ("the only thing we ever collect is ourselves") so why not just admit it and go with it?That seems to happen quite often, not necessarily in terms of the reviewer attacking someone or thing, but that a review ends up being something other than a review. You see it on LRB quite a bit.
But, what we are talking about here is a totally different and much worse thing - I wonder how often a book (record whatever) gets a horrible kicking cos someone tangentially involved in making it - even just putting it out - once knobbed the reviewer's wife. Probably loads that we never find out about.
I always found Private Eye pretty good at pointing out things where, say, someone was going on about how great X restaurant or Y hotel is - and it turns out the thing in question is owned by the journalist's husband or brother. When they did do that occasional column I always found it interesting and it was a real eye-opener.
But I assume that if they could find so many quite easily, then there must be loads that slip by. And yeah, they spot really obvious relationships - such as husband and wife ones - but it would be extremely hard to find a grudge which could go back to a single event years ago.
So I suspect loads and loads of reviews are tainted by this kind of thing. Depressing really. Especially if it's an important review that can make or break the book or record in question... though maybe those don't exist so much these days... and maybe given the above that's not such a bad thing.