TOP DOGS JIM DEROGATIS, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES; GREG KOT, CHICAGO TRIBUNE
RISING THREATS THE PITCHFORK-WIELDING ONLINE HORDES

Kot remains a thoughtful, stylish, enthusiastic chronicler of popular music, while DeRo plays principled contrarian—recently smacking down the Juno soundtrack, for instance. Both writers face the evolutionary pressure that hounds all longtime rock critics: They didn’t die before they got old-ish. The Sound Opinions public radio duo have compensated for being old kids on the block by turning a few new tricks. Kot launched his “Turn It Up” blog for the Trib in February 2007, with DeRo following suit on his eponymous Sun-Times Web page last December. We’d call it too little, too late, except no credible upstarts appear poised to knock off the headline acts at Chicago’s dailies, and the newspaper industry is shedding arts critics faster than Heather Graham shucks her clothes onscreen. Kot has mentored a string of young critics as freelancers and interns. “I always see them as future full-time daily newspaper critics,” Kot says. The question is: Can newspapers find a way to pay for what the bean counters view as a luxury beat? Answer: Like the dinosaurs of the late Cretaceous, Kot and DeRo likely will hang on until they face some kind of extinction-level event and the small mammals of the online world claim what’s left of their stomping grounds.