This study examines the state of criticism in the arts section of Sweden’s largest newspaper Dagens Nyheter. The study stems from raised concerns about the failing position of arts criticism, dubbed “the crisis of criticism”. Through an overview it compares the arts section of February 1997 to the arts section of 2007. The purpose of the thesis is to investigate to what extent “the crisis of criticism” is a reality when it comes to the arts section of Dagens Nyheter. If arts criticism has seen a decline over the time period of 1997 to 2007, the purpose of this study is to find the reasons for this decline. The method used in this study is qualitative content analysis. The content of the Dagens Nyheter arts section was coded, with each text being classified as either “criticism” or “journalism” and from then on divided into subject orientated sub-categories. This produced statistics that acted as a representation of the actual content. A series of predictions on the future state of arts criticism were used as an aid to trace the development. The results of this study show that arts criticism did indeed take a downturn between 1997 and 2007. The decline can be connected to how the newspaper was governed during this time. The head of the arts section lost the title of editor in chief and the arts section was in turn no longer sovereign. The Dagens Nyheter management also decided to merge the arts section with the entertainment section.