Yesterday, while the rest of us were busy obsessing over the Supreme Court, the board of LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art fired chief curator Paul Schimmel. Lots of people were upset about this, but I wasn’t one of them since I’m not an art guy and I don’t know anything about Schimmel. Still, I was sort of interested in this little nugget from the LA Times writeup:
There also was dismay at the way the museum handled the high-level termination. It was first reported on a New York gallery blog, then picked up and disseminated widely on Twitter. Hours later, MOCA issued a terse announcement: “Paul Schimmel is stepping down as MOCA’s chief curator. It’s amicable and there will be a release tomorrow.”
Question: is it even possible to fire a public figure any longer without having it first leaked on blogs and Twitter? It barely seems like it. I have a feeling that if you fire someone these days, you should be prepared to announce it pretty much instantly. If you don’t, it will inevitably end up on the internet somewhere and you’ll get dinged for “handling it badly.” Might as well just announce it on your own Twitter feed instead.
