Do-It-Yourself Critics

“Destroying someone’s career or pulling work from obscurity used to be the province of well-financed mass and trade publications, but now anybody with a voice strong enough to stand out on the Web can have a real impact – and maybe make a couple of bucks in the process. Pitchfork Media is a case in point. Started by Ryan Schreiber in his parents’ house in suburban Minneapolis in 1995, Pitchfork has emerged as one of the more important indie music tastemakers in any medium, with 125,000 unique visitors a day and only three full-time employees.”