Headline of the Day: What's the point of art criticism?

What is the point of art criticism?
It's easy to dismiss it as trivial entertainment, but today's culture of gallery obsession and mediocre art being talked up by fools makes art criticism more crucial than ever
–jonathan jones blog/guardian

nice flashy title but fluffy, obvious information (read the headline, skim to the bottom and then think for yourself.) what really gets me going is when "critics" act only as press agents: insert gallery name here, describe show here and make one vague statement about the overall direction here. with the old breed of ink-stained pseudo-scholars in the hole (papers/mags lay off art writers first, obviously) and a vast world of bloggers, i have yet to find a trustworthy, reliable batch of emerging critics. even the (in)famous jerry saltz posed the same question on his facebook page, asking who you read for art criticism, getting a number of results, all of whom i believe to still be hit or miss. maybe blame it on too much information/art/news out there to really focus, or is it just tepid reviewing? i think there is uncharted territory for criticism coming - if art can grow so too can the way we write about it.