Med Culture

Culture & Arts Reporting

This skill specializes med-news-reporter for the arts/culture beat. Read med-news-reporter first for the general 6-step workflow (type selection, material audit, fact-check, balance, ethics, literacy). This file adds culture-beat-specific discipline on top: cultural appropriation awareness, indigenous knowledge protection, institutional vs. independent source marking, aesthetic judgment transparency, and cross-cultural translation pitfalls.

Overview

Distilled from culture-journalism curricula at Columbia (Arts & Culture Concentration), NYU Journalism, NCCU 文化人類學, NTU 人類學系, 台藝大文化政策所. Covers the main culture-news sub-types: exhibition/museum reporting, performance-arts criticism, artist profile, cultural policy/heritage, and art-market reporting.

IRON LAW: Critique Is Marked Opinion, Not Fact

Aesthetic judgments—"the painting is powerful", "the dancer lacked 
precision", "this work pushes boundaries"—are opinions tied to a 
critical framework. They must always be (a) marked as judgment, NOT 
framed as fact; (b) attributed to a named critic / school of thought 
/ institutional voice, with their standpoint disclosed; (c) supported 
by reasoning or observable detail, not bare assertion. Factual reporting 
(artist X exhibits at venue Y on date Z with medium M) is separable 
from aesthetic evaluation. Default LLM behavior conflates them via 
descriptive adjectives that smuggle judgment into "fact" ("the brilliant 
emerging artist", "the disappointing retrospective"). Override this 
explicitly: strip adjectives or attribute them.

Why this is non-obvious: "brilliant" reads like a natural way to 
describe an artwork, not an opinion. But it is. The reader deserves 
to know whether "brilliant" is (i) a direct quote from the artist's 
institution, (ii) an observation by a named art historian with a known 
aesthetic stance, or (iii) an invented consensus the writer assumes.

Why this is non-obvious: the aesthetic judgments arrive naturally in prose. A piece on a new exhibition will naturally invite adjectives; defaulting to "powerful" or "striking" silently endorses a reading that may not be universal. Credible critics mark their stance upfront.

Rationalization Table — these justifications DO NOT override the Iron Law:

When to Use

Trigger conditions:

• User supplies culture/arts material — 展覽新聞、演出評論、藝術家訪談、文化政策、美術館新聞稿、評論草稿、演出影片節摘錄、文物借展公告 — and asks for a news/criticism piece.
• User asks for "exhibition report", "performance review", "art criticism", "gallery profile", "cultural policy tracker", "museum feature", "整理展覽新聞", "寫一篇評論", "藝術家專訪", "評論展覽".
• User paraphrases: "幫我把這份策展自述寫成報導", "寫一篇關於 X 美術館的新聞", "整理成一篇演出評論", "draft a piece on this artist opening", "turn this interview into a profile".

Input signals:

• Named artists, galleries, museums, cultural institutions, exhibition titles, artwork titles, performance venues, dates.
• Curatorial statements, artist interviews, critic reviews, institutional PR, attendance figures, cultural policy documents.
• Direct quotes from artists, curators, collectors, critics.

When NOT to use:

• Gallery/artist/museum press release in the institution's own voice → use pr-press-release.
• Art-market price prediction or investment advisory → use fin-* or decline.
• Marketing copy for an exhibition or art product → use mkt-*.
• Pure entertainment industry news (celebrity, awards ceremony) → use med-entertainment.

Methodology

Step 0: Defer general workflow to med-news-reporter

Read or have already loaded med-news-reporter for: material audit, fact-checking, source-strength tagging, balance principle, media-ethics check, media-literacy self-check. Do not re-implement those steps here. This file specializes Steps 1, 2, 3, and adds a culture-specific Step 7 (Aesthetic Judgment Audit + Cross-Cultural Sensitivity Audit).

Step 1: Classify the culture-story sub-type

If the material spans sub-types (e.g., an artist's first major museum show), classify by the primary news driver.

Step 2: Source vetting & institutional-voice tagging

Every cultural institution quoted must be tagged for PR affinity at first mention:

• ❌ Vague: 「該美術館表示...」
• ✅ Specific: 「國立故宮博物院策展部主任王大明表示...」
• ✅ When PR interest matters: 「舉辦單位 / 參展藝廊林小華表示...」(signals institutional interest in promotion)
• ✅ When independent: 「獨立評論家 / 藝評人 王大明表示...」or 「ArtForum 評論員表示...」

Source tier tagging (extends med-news-reporter's tiering with culture-specific tiers):

Step 3: Culture-specific risk check

Beyond med-news-reporter's general ethics check, add:

1. 文化挪用 (Cultural Appropriation) audit:

   • If reporting on cross-cultural artwork (Western artist depicting East Asian imagery, etc.): does the piece include the perspective of the source culture / originating community? Or only outsider framing?
   • Report should signal: "praised by Western critics for aesthetic innovation" vs. "criticized by East Asian artists' collectives for appropriation without acknowledgment."
   • If a practice is sacred (宗教儀式、部落傳統), does the reporting frame it as "external observation" or implicitly as common knowledge? Label the frame.

2. 原住民族傳統智慧創作保護條例 (Indigenous IP Protection):

   • When reporting on indigenous art, cultural symbols, myths, or music: verify whether use requires 部落同意 (tribal consent).
   • Avoid treating indigenous knowledge as "public domain" in reporting. If an artwork samples indigenous symbols, check whether artist obtained consent and credit was given.

3. 著作權與合理使用 (Copyright & Fair Use in Arts Criticism):

   • Quoting poetry, song lyrics, artwork descriptions: review references/ethics_and_law.md for fair-use thresholds.
   • Entire-poem quotation in a review = copyright violation. Excerpt + attribution = fair use.

4. 肖像權 & Privacy in portraits/photography:

   • If artwork depicts identifiable people: include consent / privacy disclaimers if needed.
   • If artist is interviewed and expresses private views: respect off-record signals.

5. Auction / appraisal interest disclosure:

   • When citing artwork valuation or market price: state who estimated/appraised it and their financial interest.
   • "Sotheby's estimates the work at NT$5M" ≠ "the work is worth NT$5M." First is fact (auction-house prediction with $ stake); second is opinion disguised as fact.