Pazz and Jop: The Fhit Hits The San?

According to an NPR story, some key critics are boycotting this year’s “Pazz & Jop Critic’s Poll,” the Village Voice‘s influential year-end music survey, because of firings at the famous alt-weekly — specifically the August dismissal of longtime music editor Robert Christgau.

NPR says esteemed critics from all corners of the country, including Tom Moon of The Philadelphia Inquirer, Ann Powers of The Los Angeles Times and Jim Derogatis of The Chicago Sun-Times, are refusing to participate, although not all blamed the editor’s firing.

Sasha Frere-Jones, the New Yorker‘s pop music critic, was more candid in his assessment:

“He was one of three or four people who invented rock criticism…When you fire Bob Christgau, you know, it’s a slap in the face to so many of us in so many ways.”

Ouch.

Given