How negative was the Plain Dealer to The Cleveland Orchestra music director?

My April piece Critical Sinking — a close look at the conflict between The Cleveland Orchestra, the Plain Dealer and critic Donald Rosenberg which lead to the reassignment of a highly skilled music critic who covered one of the best musical institutions in the world — prompted a letter asking for more details.

I read your recent article "Critical Sinking" with great interest. I thought it was fairly balanced, however, one paragraph left me wanting more.

On page 73 the article states: "For the meeting, Julie Clark, working for the orchestra’s media relations department, assembled a point-by-point critique of all 150 sentences Rosenberg had written about Welser-Möst, from his guest-conducting performance on Feb. 12, 1993, to the latest concert before the meeting. She rated each sentence as “positive,” “mixed” or “negative."

I wonder if other readers had the same reaction as me. I would have liked to know the results of that critique. Did the research show a predominant slant to these sentences or not? Why was the result of that study not revealed? Was the information denied to you, not requested or merely not pursued.

For those interested, I've scanned the chart described in the story. Each X represents an individual sentence. So for each article Rosenberg penned about a Welser-Möst-led performance, there may be several Xs under each category.

Orchestra critic demoted

Updated Tue. 9/30:

Plain Dealer editor Susan Goldberg has demoted the paper's classical music critic, Donald Rosenberg, apparently because she felt he was unfairly critical of Cleveland Orchestra director Franz Welser-Möst. She reassigned him to general arts writing, taking him off the Orchestra beat, which he had for 28 years. The decision comes after years of complaints about Rosenberg from Orchestra supporters.

This is a big story in national media and classical music circles. Here are links to the major articles:
-Thursday's New York Times article: “They’ve taken my career away from me,” Rosenberg says.
-Monday and Tuesday blog posts from Baltimore Sun classical music critic Tim Smith: "Music critics are hired to deliver critical opinions. If those opinions are not popular with some people, tough."
-Wednesday's Plain Dealer profile of Welser-Möst by Rosenberg's replacement, Zack Lewis.
-Wednesday's Cleveland Scene article: "What part of critic don't they understand?"
-Rosenberg's post-orchestra work this week, on his ballet, modern dance and classical music blog.
-PD reader rep Ted Diadun writes very cautiously about Rosenberg getting the boot.
-The Los Angeles Times classical critic says he likes Welser-Möst but thinks the Plain Dealer has damaged itself.
-A Wall Street Journal classical critic asks whether PD publisher Terry Egger should be serving on the Cleveland Orchestra's board.

Check out Cleveland Magazine's coverage of the orchestra and the newspaper: Andy Netzel's article on the orchestra's financial troubles, from June 2007, and my profile of Susan Goldberg, from this March.