Blog mention of L'ville in Gourmet

Sorry, but if a critical (positive or negative) opinion appears on the Website of a national fine-food publication, excusing careless reporting with "it's just a blog" doesn't work for me.

What about the piece is careless? The only problem you've expressed is that it didn't paint a complete picture of the town and I still don't understand why you view this as "careless" or "slipshod". Why did it need to, and why is it careless for not doing so? Why does commentary on a select grouping of a set need to also address the whole of the set?

It's OK for blogs to be informal. The vast majority of them are - those that aren't are more newsfeed and less blog, and seemingly duplicate the purpose of the rest of the site in which they are hosted (such as CNN's Political Ticker, imo). Personally I think a good blog IS informal. A blog doesn't have to be journalism and there's no need to hold it to loftier standards. Had this been a feature piece on Louisville, fine, but it was informal commentary on some experiences he had in the city. Had his commentary been riddled with ouright bad information, likewise I would understand the criticism.

I really don't think a blog posting should be seen as much higher than a forum posting, or that of a journal which happens to be public (which is where blogging began anyway).

It seems to me the main complaint about the piece he wrote isn't really the content of the blog rather it is the overall theme and purpose of the blog entry. I felt that the writers intention was to just provide a brief snapshot of his experience not really to provide a deep look into the Louisville dining scene. I think he did a fine job of a providing that snapshot. I don't think we should feel slighted that he didn't provide his culinary overview of the state of dining in Louisville, as has been mentioned by many people it's just a Blog.

Ohh and by the way, The Wire is available through Netflix.

[Robin Garr]

A blog doesn't have to be journalism and there's no need to hold it to loftier standards.

I think this is where we have our fundamental disagreement.

Certainly Sturgeon's Law applies to blogs as it does to virtually everything. But in my opinion, the statement, "a blog doesn't have to be journalism," doesn't work when said blog is presented on a media Website like epicurious.com and bears the byline of a regular writer. Maybe it doesn't <I>have</i> to be journalism, but it looks a whole lot better if it is. It's hard for the average consumer to view a blog by a Gourmet writer on Gourmet's Website without expecting it to meet the magazine's standard.

[Robin Garr]

Ohh and by the way, The Wire is available through Netflix.

Excellent! I'll put it in my queue. I'll bet it lags a year behind, though. Can I get the current series featuring the Baltimore Sun?

Ohh and by the way, The Wire is available through Netflix.

Excellent! I'll put it in my queue. I'll bet it lags a year behind, though. Can I get the current series featuring the Baltimore Sun?

look for season five for that, but I doubt it's on dvd yet.

Maybe it doesn't <I>have</i> to be journalism, but it looks a whole lot better if it is.

I'll stand by my original comment. It's genre confusion. If this guy's blog required the research and journalism standards you require, it wouldn't be worth his time to do it as a blog. It's supposed to be quick--a verbal kind of communication. If you want another example, check out Mark Hebert's political blog on WHAS11.com. He writes things quickly, and includes things he would not do in a written story.

[Robin Garr]

I'll stand by my original comment. It's genre confusion. If this guy's blog required the research and journalism standards you require, it wouldn't be worth his time to do it as a blog. It's supposed to be quick--a verbal kind of communication. If you want another example, check out Mark Hebert's political blog on WHAS11.com. He writes things quickly, and includes things he would not do in a written story.

I'll stand by my original comment: Sturgeon's Law applies.

There's no genre confusion on my part, Charles. Believe me, I know what a blog is.

Maybe it doesn't <I>have</i> to be journalism, but it looks a whole lot better if it is.

I'll stand by my original comment. It's genre confusion. If this guy's blog required the research and journalism standards you require, it wouldn't be worth his time to do it as a blog. It's supposed to be quick--a verbal kind of communication. If you want another example, check out Mark Hebert's political blog on WHAS11.com. He writes things quickly, and includes things he would not do in a written story.

Precisely. If we put the same requirements on blog postings as we would on actual journalistic endeavors, they become basically the same thing as the articles contained in the main portion of the site. Blogs serve a purpose as do feature articles/columns. If there's no difference, then there's no point of having a blog.

There's no genre confusion on my part, Charles. Believe me, I know what a blog is.

Oh well. I don't think this argument is your best moment.

[Robin Garr]

There's no genre confusion on my part, Charles. Believe me, I know what a blog is.

Oh well. I don't think this argument is your best moment.

Don't know what to say. Quality reporting and writing is important to me, and as a longtime Web publisher <i>and</i> print media journalist, I'm unimpressed by a format that excuses careless and sloppy work. "It's just a blog" is a very weak argument in my book, and attributing that disdain to "genre confusion" is marginally insulting.

Maybe it doesn't <I>have</i> to be journalism, but it looks a whole lot better if it is.

I'll stand by my original comment. It's genre confusion. If this guy's blog required the research and journalism standards you require, it wouldn't be worth his time to do it as a blog. It's supposed to be quick--a verbal kind of communication. If you want another example, check out Mark Hebert's political blog on WHAS11.com. He writes things quickly, and includes things he would not do in a written story.

Precisely. If we put the same requirements on blog postings as we would on actual journalistic endeavors, they become basically the same thing as the articles contained in the main portion of the site. Blogs serve a purpose as do feature articles/columns. If there's no difference, then there's no point of having a blog.

I agree that is the role of a blog for people like me and you, but I do think it is odd that a real journalist would have a means by which to offer reporting without adhering to journalistic standards. If I say something on a blog it is one thing, but if Mark Hebert says it, it has a lot more weight because people know he is a journalist.

[Robin Garr]

I agree that is the role of a blog for people like me and you, but I do think it is odd that a real journalist would have a means by which to offer reporting without adhering to journalistic standards. If I say something on a blog it is one thing, but if Mark Hebert says it, it has a lot more weight because people know he is a journalist.

Yes! Thank you!

I agree that is the role of a blog for people like me and you, but I do think it is odd that a real journalist would have a means by which to offer reporting without adhering to journalistic standards. If I say something on a blog it is one thing, but if Mark Hebert says it, it has a lot more weight because people know he is a journalist.

It does have more weight, yes, but does that mean it's inappropriate for him to have an outlet for less formal communication? Does it demonstrate a lack of journalistic standards for Mr. Edge to throw out some opinions on a small handful of places where he ate in Louisville and not paint a complete picture of the entire town? If he were misrepresenting Louisville, I could understand criticisms, but he didn't. He was only sharing a few experiences.

I really don't understand the purpose of criticizing a blog entry for not being something it was never intended to be.

[Robin Garr]

Does it demonstrate a lack of journalistic standards for Mr. Edge to throw out some opinions on a small handful of places where he ate in Louisville and not paint a complete picture of the entire town? If he were misrepresenting Louisville, I could understand criticisms, but he didn't. He was only sharing a few experiences.

But that's not what he did. Re-read the original blog post.

He wrote a short blog entry starting with a broad premise: that Louisville is lightly regarded on the national food scene and lags behind Nashville or Charleston in the public perception. Without going into whether this is a dubious claim (although I think it is), he then asserts that he has "discovered" that Louisvile is "catching up with" those places. He immediately followed that with one-sentence mini-reviews of three good but hardly random or typical eateries. The juxtaposition of his commentary and three specific mini-reviews strongly suggests to the average reader (i.e., me) that he considers them representative of the city's dining scene. They're not. And even a one-sentence mention of a few places like Proof, Seviche and Mojito would have gone a long way to clear that up.

Alternatively, he could have solved the problem completely by dropping his news-style intro, which raised expectations, and simply blogging, "I visited Louisville last week and visited three really nice places to eat. They were ... "

But by framing it as a more serious food trend story, he then created a stronger duty to support his hypothesis. Yes, even if it was "just a blog."

I really don't understand the purpose of criticizing a blog entry for not being something it was never intended to be.

Precisely. I'm a loyal reader of Hebert's blog. He does real reporting on it, but also includes other stuff. For instance, in today's post about casino gambling, he includes: And the Senate President probably had the funny line of the night. When I asked for his reaction to the governor finally talking openly about casinos as a budget fix, Williams responded "well, he had to talk about the crazy aunt in the attic sometime."

That's not "newsworthy" for a newscast, but it's fun to read. Sometimes he'll include something he's running down but doesn't know the full scoop on yet. Later one get's the full news story. It's not sloppy or shoddy, but it is more informal, not fully-developed, information not worthy of a serious story, background, interesting tidbits, etc.

I wonder if I should mention genre . . .