Sony’s The Interview hits theaters – photo by Travis Wise

The massive cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment, purportedly by North Korean hackers, captured the popular imagination in December. Recent hoopla has focused on Seth Rogen and James Franco’s movie The Interview, one of five Sony pictures leaked in the attack. The movie, which depicts the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, provoked threats of violence from the hackers, leading Sony to delay a theatrical release. After much debate — even President Obama weighed in on the mess — Sony moved forward with limited release in theaters on Christmas Day, coupled with a broader (and massively successful) online release. (The debacle made the No. 2 spot on our 2014 Top 10 Arts Policy Stories roundup.)

Lost in The Interview‘s shuffle, however, are revelations about Sony as a business and questions about the journalism and the First Amendment that bear a closer look. Hollywood (heck, lots of major US corporations) has long suffered a gender and race gap. Leaked documents revealed the situation at Sony is pretty stark: only one of the seventeen Sony employees making more than $1 million is a woman, and 88% of these top execs are white. (The pay gap trend extends to actors, too.) More troubling than the obvious, however, is Sony’s efforts to stop the flow of information. Sony successfully took down Reddit content citing copyright infringement, threatened twitter with legal action, and demanded that media outlets to refrain from publishing stories about the hack. In good news for journalism, however, Sony is not in the legal right, as media outlets are generally protected by the First Amendment (as long as they aren’t stealing the data themselves.)

Arts Council England Prioritizes Diversity: In December, Arts Council England (ACE) announced new funding regulations with several strategies aimed at making the arts more accessible. Chief among these is a diversity tenet, in which organizations must demonstrate diversity – of audiences, programming and in their workforce – in order to continue receiving public funding. This “fundamental shift,” presented by ACE Chair Peter Bazalgette, “[places] responsibility on every funded organization to make their programme of work more reflective of the communities they serve.” British theater companies have mostly welcomed this “diversity drive,” though some do question its feasibility. The 670 nonprofits currently receiving ACE funding have some time to get their act together. The Council will not systematically consider diversity data when making funding recommendations until 2018. The monitoring of progress, however, is to begin next year.

Level Funding for Arts Agencies Secured in Cromnibus: The end of 2014 found the “least productive Congress ever” hard at work on eleventh hour legislation, with many implications for the arts. On December 14, the Senate narrowly passed the annual budget bill, this year colorfully nicknamed the “Cromnibus,” thus funding the federal government through next September. The bill, signed into law by President Obama on December 16, includes stable funding for National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities; each will receive $146 million. In addition, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Arts in Education program within the U.S. Department of Education, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will all be funded at previous levels. While a bill to make permanent certain charity tax breaks – including the popular IRA Charitable Rollover – was rejected, the Senate did approve a bill retroactively extending these breaks for 2014, providing donor incentives through December.

Penn Foundation Wipes Out Two Philadelphia Arts Organizations: Philadelphia’s only remaining major arts funder, the William Penn Foundation, has been a driving force behind the push towards capitalization of institutions within the grantmaker community over the past few years. Unfortunately, when you invest in capitalizing some organizations, there’s less left over for others, as a few Philly organizations recently found out the hard way. In November, the Foundation declined to renew its general operating grant to Dance/USA Philadelphia (Dance/UP), which it has funded for the last eight years to the tune of $2.7 million. As a result, Dance/UP announced last month that it would have to close, prompting an angry outcry from the local dance community. The foundation later agreed to provide short-term transition funding to allow Dance/UP to close responsibly by migrating some of its programs to other area organizations. Meanwhile, Penn also declined to fund The Philadelphia Singers; in recent years, grants from the foundation had accounted for almost a full third of the chorus’s annual operating budget. The chorus, founded in 1972, announced that it too would cease operations following its May 2015 concert, citing loss of funding as the major contributing factor in the decision.

US Reaches Diplomatic Breakthrough with Cuba: In a historic breakthrough reversing fifty years of U.S. policy, President Obama announced on December 17 that the US would begin normalizing diplomatic relations with Cuba. The announcement, considered by many to have been a long time coming, offers potentially significant implications for artists. Although the embargo has not prevented cultural exchange between the US and Cuba in recent years, many are hopeful that improved relations will ease logistical headaches around visas and artist payments, encouraging more presenters to book Cuban artists and fostering new relationships with our neighbors to the south.

MUSICAL CHAIRS/COOL JOBS

• The New England Foundation for the Arts has named Cathy Edwards as its new executive director, replacing longtime leader Rebecca Blunk who passed away last year.
• Sharnita Johnson is the new arts program director at New Jersey’s Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation.
• Arts Council England has appointed former Classic FM director Darren Henley as its new chief executive, replacing Alan Davey who is leaving ACE to become controller of Radio 3.
• In two retirements at the New York Times, celebrated music critic Allan Kozinn and veteran arts writer Carol Vogel left the newspaper of record after tenures of 37 and 31 years, respectively.
• William Ruprecht, chief executive of New York-based Sotheby’s, and Steven Murphy, chief executive of London-based Christie’s, departed their respective posts at the end of the year.
• Two staff departures this month came with some public controversy. Matthew Lennon, Houston Arts Alliance’s Director of Civic Art and Design, resigned his post over objections to the city’s handling of a major arts commission. And longtime Artistic Director Ari J. Roth was fired from his position at Washington DC’s Theater J, following a tumultuous tenure that frequently saw him pushing the boundaries of his home institution’s tolerance for free expression. Roth’s ouster prompted a strong protest from his colleagues in the theater world.
• New Yorkers for Parks is hiring a Director of Research and Planning. Posted December 10, no closing date.
• The Barr Foundation is looking for a Program Officer for Arts and Culture. Posted December 15, no closing date.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE

• New research published in the journal Urban Studies looks at the economic impact of cultural hubs on urban development nationwide, suggesting that localized, place-specific approach to arts initiatives are the most beneficial to economic development.
• On the other hand, the What Works Network, a government-backed organization in the UK, released a report suggesting that large sports and arts facilities have “zero” economic impact.
• The National Endowment for the Arts has released a summary of its June 2014 symposium, which was titled “Measuring Cultural Engagement: A Quest for New Terms, Tools, and Techniques.”
• Southern Methodist University’s National Center for Arts Research published its second major report on the health of the arts industry, with in-depth data on 26 of 184 previously identified performance indices.
• The American Alliance of Museums published the first-ever field wide survey of compensation in the museum industry, with information on salary, benefits and demographics for 51 positions, broken out by geographic area, museum discipline, governance and operating budget.
• The Hewlett Foundation released an assessment of its regranting intermediaries strategies in San Francisco, which includes key takeaways for the larger field.
• The Irvine Foundation released its third and final study of arts engagement strategies, this time partnering with AEA Consulting to analyze the relationship between arts programming, new audiences and unusual spaces.
• A study released by Grantmakers for Effective Organizations shows grantmakers are shifting support towards general operating & multiyear funding.
• Finally, in less than promising news for this section of the Newsroom, research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests that our beliefs are driven more by psychological associations than by hard facts.

The Detroit Institute of Arts’s Woodward entrance. (Image courtesy the Detroit Institute of Arts)

After a two-year battle, a federal ruling to approve Detroit’s bankruptcy plan brought to an end the threat to auction off the Detroit Institute of Arts’s collection. The plan includes the “grand bargain,” an $800 million deal that partly consists of a $366 million investment from the Ford Foundation, Kresge Foundation, Knight Foundation, and other heavy-hitters. In the bargain, DIA supporters are providing funding to save Detroit’s public pensions, with the caveat that DIA be administered by an independent charitable trust, and not by the City of Detroit, which has owned the museum since 1919. While all hail these developments as positive, DIA still has a tough road to financial stability ahead. As it looks to shore up its finances and secure its future by raising its endowment to $400 million, DIA faces hefty legal bills incurred during the bankruptcy battle, and the daunting task of fundraising from donors whose pockets may have been emptied into the grand bargain. Regardless of what the future holds, the foundations will be keeping a close eye on their investment–the Knight Foundation’s Dennis Scholl has been appointed as an observer of DIA’s board.

Publisher Hachette Wins the Right to Set E-Book Prices from Amazon: In a multi-year agreement, “Big Five” publisher Hachette won the right to set prices for e-books from Amazon, which had attempted to pressure the company to price all e-books at $9.99. The retail giant suffered in the court of public opinion for its strongarm negotiation tactics, including long shipping delays of Hachette books, disallowing advance sales, and steering customers to similar books by other publishers. Some authors are calling for Amazon to be investigated on anti-trust grounds; at the same time, Amazon has questioned the need for traditional publishing houses in the digital era. While all sides seem to be breathing a sigh of relief over the deal, it seems clear that the fight isn’t over–publishers have long had a difficult relationship with digital retailers, and observers are think the next negotiation may be just as acrimonious.

Mid-Term Elections Offer Mixed Results for the Arts: In case you were living under a rock last month, we had some elections and the Democrats lost their shirts. So what does that mean for the arts? With the Republican-majority Congress, Americans for the Arts forecasts the passage of a comprehensive tax reform bill, which will likely impact charitable giving rules. The chairship of the subcommittee that oversees funding for the Arts in Education will change, while Representative Ken Calvert (R-CA) will continue to govern the subcommittee that controls the National Endowment for the Arts budget. Barry Hessenius predicts a possible attack on the NEA’s budget, given its symbolic weight for some in Congress, and recommends that arts leaders work to build stronger relationships with our elected officials. Meanwhile, at the state level, arts-friendly candidates suffered losses in Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland. In better news, Rhode Island passed a ballot referendum providing $35 million in bonds to renovate arts facilities in the state, and pro-arts measures passed in Palm Beach County, Salt Lake City, Scottsdale (AZ), and Middlesex County (NJ).

Three Foundations Purchase Pittsburgh’s August Wilson Center: The embattled August Wilson Center for African American Culture now rests in the hands of three foundations, which purchased it for $7.9 million from Dollar Bank, its mortgage holder. The Pittsburgh Foundation, Heinz Endowments, and Richard King Mellon Foundation had attempted to close on an $8.49 million deal by October 31, but the sale was torpedoed when a creditor appealed an earlier $200,000 judgment in the Pennsylvania Superior Court, and the foundations refused to proceed until the debt was settled. Dollar Bank was forced to move ahead with a foreclosure auction on November 3, which cleared the Center of its debt and allowed the foundations to complete their purchase.The Center plans to re-open in 2015 under new nonprofit leadership and will continue its mission as a focal point for African American arts and culture.

Obama Says the Internet Should Be Treated as a Public Utility: Net neutrality supporters got an unexpected boost from President Obama this November. The White House released a plan recommending that the Federal Communications Commission reclassify Internet broadband as a public utility under Title II of the Telecommunications Act, which proponents argue would give the FCC the increased regulatory power necessary to protect net neutrality. The president seems to agree with this line of thinking — his administration’s plan also rejects the FCC’s proposed rules to allow for paid prioritization of Internet traffic. Just after the President’s announcement, though, FCC Chairman (and Obama appointee) Tom Wheeler stated that he favored a different approach, one friendlier to the concerns of large Internet service providers like Comcast, AT&T, and Time Warner. The Washington Post speculates that Obama’s announcement may merely represent shrewd political positioning, since if the FCC enacts strong rules, and the Republican Congress votes to overturn them, a presidential veto would put Obama and the Democrats squarely in the camp of millions of voters who have asked the FCC for powerful net neutrality protections.

MUSICAL CHAIRS/COOL JOBS

• Indonesia has named the U.S.-educated Anies Baswedan as the new Minister of Culture and Elementary and Secondary Education.
• The NEA’s Director of Folk and Traditional Arts Barry Bergey will retire after 29 years of service.
• Chorus America is seeking a new President and CEO. Posted November 22, closing date December 19.
• Kansas City’s Charlotte Street Foundation is looking for a new Director of Artists’ Programs. Posted October 29, no closing date.
• The Foundation Center is hiring for a Director of Community Foundation Services position. Posted November 4, no closing date.
• The Barr Foundation seeks an Arts and Culture Program Assistant. Posted November 20, no closing date.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE

• A study by the U.S. Trust finds a big bump in charitable giving among wealthy donors in 2014, and projects further growth.
• New research from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that nonprofit employment rose during the recession.
• The BFAMFAPhD collective published Artists Report Back: A National Study on the Lives of Arts Graduates and Working Artists, which asserts that “the fantasy of future earnings in the arts cannot justify the high cost of degrees.”
• The researchers behind the Crystal Bridges field trip experiment that we reported on back in October have released another study, this time focused on high-quality theater productions.
• A report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture looks at how well rural areas with a higher proportion of “creative class” workers fared during the recession.
• Suby Raman takes a deep dive into gender representation in America’s top orchestras.
• New research from Italy indicates that those with a need for “cognitive closure” are less likely to appreciate abstract art.