Chew on this: ethics for food bloggers

I had a food blog for about four years that I ended up stopping for a variety of reasons. But from day one I have had a disclaimer on my bio saying clearly that I don't consider myself a professional food writer and linked from there directly to people like S. Irene Virbilla, Jonathon Gold, and other bloggers who I felt provided objective and reliable info. Disclaimer or no, I did try to follow my own code of ethics, especially as my readership grew beyond friends and family.

I completely agree with Pat’s assertion that the Internet tends to separate the wheat from the chaff pretty quickly. Bad bloggers with an agenda get weeded out (they tend to stick out) and you end up developing your own list of reliable sources. It's also a fluid medium, so that which was relevant and current one year may be replaced by something different the next.

I also think the variety of voices out there in the LA food blog world open a lot of doors on our very diverse food culture. No one voice or publication could possibly cover it all and do it justice. Having these independent voices out there paints a bigger and more complete picture.

Thanks for having Pat on. I've been reading her for years and have come to trust her opinions on our local food culture.

Chowhound, Urban Spoon, and Yelp aren't web logs at all, nor are the people who post there "bloggers". They are discussion forums. And for the record, Chowhound is a moderated forum which has a pretty strict policy that prevents discussion of issues of food safety or other stuff that might expose them to unnecessary lawsuits.

While there is some market for sites that are sensationalist (or just outright idiotic), I think that long term, people will get their restaurant advice from sites that provide "fair and balanced" coverage (and not in the Fox News sense). Readers need to determine for themselves what sources they trust, and restaurants need to not freak out over every negative review.

Regarding comped meals, I think that disclosure is certainly a good idea. In actual practice, I think the vast majority of people writing web logs about food rarely or never get free meals.

I personally try to read sites that I feel follow reasonable standards and which don't post intentionally inflammatory or sensationalist material, but I don't question those sites' right to post such material (though in several cases, I have *suggested* that a site might consider following better journalistic practices in cases where they're posting information about a restaurant without notifying the restaurant ahead of time).

If sites are making libelous statements, there are already legal guidelines which allow the victim to have their day in court. I don't think it's realistic (or even feasible) to somehow impose a set of journalistic standards on informal journalism / social media. And, for writers who do this as a hobby, it's unreasonable to hold them to the same standards as, say, the NYT. Of course, web logs attached to traditional media publications would be wise to adopt similar (though maybe slightly more relaxed) guidelines as the publications they're a part of.

The big difference between these new forms of media and traditional media is that the number of voices is so much greater. If one or two people don't like a restaurant, it's unlikely that people will stop going there. If the buzz is overwhelmingly negative, however, the restaurant may see some issues with their bottom line. This system isn't completely fair, but neither is the old system.

Some restaurants have adapted, and try to use new media to their advantage rather than fight it; this strategy has already proved successful for a number of places. But there's a very fine line here between participating in a dialog and trying to game the system.