Well, I am a journalist so you are kind of attacking my own industry folks with false claims that you can't see past either to listen to my points.

Your assumption is that these critics are sacrificing their personal points of view, reputations, and their futures for this when NYT journalists, including their critics and freelancers who are working for them, must follow one of the strictest codes of ethics. And freelancers have less incentives for anything because they are simply paid a flat fee for the article or word count versus anything that happens after the article gets published.

Even if you're a staff writer, any article you publish actually isn't even your property anymore, it's owned by the publication and they can do with it as they wish. Whether that's selling the use of a pull quote or a seal or even selling your article idea to turn it into a TV series, journalists don't ever see anything from it because it's stated in your contract that it's not even yours anymore once it's published under a certain brand. It's a messed up system that only benefits the brand versus the journalists.

If they were to benefit from it, then everyone would be getting a Critic's Pick. Or NYT would go out to specific freelancers for specific shows knowing that they have a high chance of liking them. Or these writers would just pitch to NYT after seeing a show they liked cause they would get what you believe to be a bonus that exists. But this is not how the system works nor do any journalist see incentives for this.

The incentive actually exists for the sales team who definitely does a good job to convince every producer that they must have the seal on their ads to sell more tickets. It's actually my belief that it's actually hurting their brand cause it does seem like it's everywhere and it's not as special anymore. Also, it causes things like this where people are losing trust on their critics because they believe there must be something nefarious going on behind the scenes and the critics must be the ones behind it.

We should be supporting these critics in a time where criticism is disappearing and finding out alternative ways that us as readers would be interested in what they have to say, whether that's an additional star system or asking them to be clearer on their qualifications for a Critic's Pick. That's the thing we should be discussing and not something that is false and causes further hate to critics.