[单项选择]

Of all the changes that have taken place in English-language newspapers during the past quarter-century, perhaps the most far-reaching has been the inexorable decline in the scope and seriousness of their arts coverage.
It is difficult to the point of impossibility for the average reader under the age of forty to imagine a time when high-quality arts criticism could be found in most big-city newspapers. Yet a considerable number of the most significant collections of criticism published in the 20th century consisted in large part of newspaper reviews. To read such books today is to marvel at the fact that their learned contents were once deemed suitable for publication in general-circulation dailies.
We are even farther removed from the unfocused newspaper reviews published in England between the turn of the 20th century and the eve of World War 2, at a time when newsprint was dirt-cheap and stylish arts criticism was considered an ornament to the Publications in
A. arts criticism has disappeared from big-city newspapers
B. English-language newspapers used to carry more arts reviews
C. high-quality newspapers retain a large body of readers
D. young readers doubt the suitability of criticism on dailies