In Authority: Essays (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Apr.), the Pulitzer Prize–winning book and TV critic reflects on the function of criticism.

This essay collection covers five years of your work. Where do you see the most change in yourself as a critic?

I see less of myself the further away we get from the beginning of my career. I can see the way that my personal life was pushing through then. Since starting at New York magazine in 2021, I still see the same preoccupations in my work, but they feel much more properly critical: interest in form, genre, materialism, the relationship between politics and art. The meaning of the “I” has changed over time, and now I feel like I’m in character as the essay when I say “I” now.

You suggest that criticism is either “the lowest and most concrete of all the arts” or “one of the higher crafts.” Could you talk about that distinction?

There’s this perennial question in the past 300 years, especially in the 20th century, about whether the critic is doing something like art. Generally speaking, critics tend to fall into the “yes” camp, but I sometimes think they confuse art with discipline. When you elevate criticism to the status of art, you lose sight of the function. My question about criticism is ultimately the same as my question about a novel, which is, Who do you think you are and what do you think you’re doing?

How does your job as a critic affect how you consume media on your own time?

I try to make sure that my diet has a bunch of garbage in it. Trash TV, reality TV—I have probably increased my consumption of that since starting at New York. Sometimes I feel like, Well, I actually don’t want to write about this because I want to be able to just watch and enjoy it. When I have my work hat on, I’m applying all kinds of other rubrics. Someone might assume that a critic, especially someone with a reputation like mine, would have a hard time enjoying things out in the wild, but I think it’s actually just a labor thing. I’m not relaxing if I’m not able to stop working.

What do you think the critic’s role is in today’s media landscape?

If the artist is saying, Look, this can be art, I see my job as being like, It’s not art after all. I’m not trying to de-legitimate it, but for me it’s about reminding ourselves that when we have some kind of aesthetic experience, that’s something that’s happening in this world. We’re not taking a trip somewhere else. It’s a mode of experience that’s not ontologically different from riding the subway or having dinner.
I’m not trying to protect art from the world. I’m ultimately most interested in the world.