I sent an email with a link to Marty to this thread and he responded:
From: Marty Rosen [mailto:cjdining@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2008 2:05 PM
To: Brian Curl
Subject: Re: louisvillehotbytes - can you comment?
Brian,
Thanks for writing. I'm happy to comment. Please feel free to convey my response to the forum at large.
There are no policy restrictions of any kind on my participation in online forums or discussion groups. As you correctly recall, when I started writing the columns for the Courier-Journal, I participated regularly in the Louisville Restaurants Forum. The Courier-Journal editors gave me complete liberty to continue doing so, if I wished.
When I took over the columns in 2005, I volunteered - with no coercion whatsoever on the newspaper's part - that during my tenure as restaurant reviewer I would write about food exclusively for the Courier-Journal. Given the prominent nature of the Courier-Journal's food and restaurant coverage, which reaches and influences a large and very devoted audience, I felt that spreading my byline on food-related articles across multiple publications would be a confusing disservice to the paper, to me, and to readers. This is a separate matter from forum participation, but I think it's important to make clear that in the dozen or so years I've been writing for the Courier-Journal and for other local publications, my editors have always respected my status as a freelancer, and have never attempted to interfere with my relationships with other publications and media. I don't "clear" my activities with them, and they have never questioned anything I've done for another publication.
With regard to the forum: although I consider it a good source of entertainment and information, immediately after I started writing the columns, it became clear to me that I wouldn't have time to participate.
I write two weekly columns for the Courier-Journal, as well as assorted ad hoc arts-related features and reviews. I still contribute on occasion to LEO. I have various other writing projects underway. And most importantly I have a full-time academic position that is both demanding and rewarding.
Although I am fortunate in having a varied professional life that I enjoy immensely, these professional activities are quite demanding - and I also try to find time for purely recreational activities that don't involve writing or food.
I speculate that for many of the participants, the forum is a casual recreational activity. I spend a fair amount of time each week not only cooking and eating, but reading, thinking, and writing about food - and it's difficult for me to shift from writing about food for publication to writing about it casually in an informal setting. For me, as I'm sure you will understand, taking part in a restaurant forum would be not true recreation, but something of a busman's holiday. And since it's not my nature to be brief (as this note will suggest, and as all my editors will happily confirm), active participation would be very time-consuming. I've been active in professional and recreational online forums since the heyday of Usenet in the late 80s and early 90s; I know myself well enough to avoid such entanglements.
Moreover, I have a set of lively correspondents who email
cjdining@gmail.com each week to offer me instruction and advice about ratings that are either too high or too low, turns of phrase that are not clear, and cliches that are overused. They also request and offer restaurant advice, and alert me to great and deplorable developments in the restaurant scene. I try to answer or refer all of that mail.
In any event, as I wrote, I'm delighted that the Louisville Restaurants Forum continues to be an entertaining and informative resource for readers, and I'm glad to see the addition of a music and arts forum. I don't expect to return to the forum as an active participant, but I always try to respond to anyone who takes the time to contact me directly.
Regards,
Marty Rosen
