Journalists are public educators. They are driven by determination, curiosity, and competitive nature. Though it is their duty to provide truth and objectivity in their publications, they will often stop at nothing to get the latest scoop or to get ahead. Enter the question of ethics. Independent of what topic or industry they are reporting about, it is their utmost responsibility to uphold the expectations of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, and be honest, fair, independent, and respectful in all your journalistic endeavours. There is however existing controversy as to whether some genres of journalism actually classify as journalism. Food writing is one such genre that is often debated.
As the MEAA preamble outlines “journalists describe society itself… they convey information, ideas, and opinions, a privileged role… they search, disclose, record, question, entertain, suggest and remember… they inform citizens and animate democracy”. This description of a journalist, according to Samantha Wight’s publication, Edible Ethics, on all accounts, “seems to sum up the role of today’s food media” (2006, p.28). University of Maryland Professor, Warren Belasco, has described the role of food media “as the handmaiden to consumer culture, helping people refine their choices, being more expert as consumers, more discriminating” (Wight, 2006, p.24).
Undeniably, the exposure of food media has increased significantly over the past few decades, consequently widening the variety of topics covered by food writers. This multitude of topics has in turn redefined the importance of food media and thus deems anyone who operates as a food writer, a journalist. In this capacity, food writers must provide the public with information on food-related issues that is fair, honest, and accurate, with the intention to entertain, inspire, and educate. They must prioritize the public’s best interest at all times, as well as demonstrate a consideration to their employer, the food industry, and ultimately their profession.
There is one style of food journalism that attracts more controversy than others, and that style is restaurant reviewing. Though there is a difference between critiquing a restaurant and simple writing about a restaurant, its’ new menu concept or chef’s background for instance, both publications are available to the public and must therefore adhere to ethical standards (Austin Food Blogger Alliance, 2011). Within the restaurant industry, reviews are considered dire to business success or failure, as well as the most effective form of public relations. Followers of the New York Times restaurant reviews section are suggested by Mitchell Davis, author of A Taste for New York: Restaurant Reviews, Food Discourse, and The Field of Gastronomy in America, to read the reviews “because knowing about restaurants and chefs has become a part of modern, sophisticated, urban identity”. Ultimately, Davis says that “restaurant reviews enrich our cultural capitals”. Closer to home, freelance food journalist, John Newton critiques the state of Sydney’s food criticism saying “the purpose of today’s restaurant criticism is to pick trends, create stars or destroy lives” (Wight, 2006, p.33). In the spirit of entertaining, it is not unusual for reviewers to offer a joke usually at the expense of the food or restaurant being critiqued. It is this type of writing however that can often cross the line, becoming unethical if the reviewer fails to publish fair content and thus borders on defamation of the restaurant under review.
Restaurant reviews are available everywhere, not only in the more traditional mediums like newspapers and magazines but also directly at our fingertips on the internet. The popular food magazines such as Australian Gourmet Traveller, Vogue Entertaining and Travel, Delicious, and Donna Hay are filled with information about ‘what’s hot and what’s not’ in the restaurant world. Food editor of Australian Gourmet Traveller, Rodney Dunn, has said that it is his publication’s main agenda to set trends and largely declare their latest find of one of the world’s must-dine-in restaurants (Wight, 2006, p.24). In regard to restaurant reviews in print mediums, there are no existing ethical guidelines to be upheld within Australia (Wight, 2006). There are however numerous loose variations of recommended ethical behaviour expected of a food reviewer. One such variation describes the acceptable restaurant critiquing method as including concepts of anonymity, multiple visits, appropriate ordering and full menu trial, full payment and no acceptance of bribery, varied restaurant location and quality experiences, fairness to new restaurants, appropriate and unbiased rating, re-reviews in the case of changes, and fact checking (Maine Restaurant Directory, no date). Though each as important as the next, the concepts of anonymity and bribery are often at the forefront of food journalism ethical debates not only in Australia but worldwide.
If a food critic is recognized or discloses their professional position or task, “how can the critic possibly deliver an honest review to the public? How can they be sure that the food they are getting is the same as everyone else in the restaurant?” (Wight, 2006, p.34). It is for this reason that numerous critics have withdrawn from the profession to be fair to loyal food readers. Other reviewers however, believe that although they are renowned faces within the food industry, they practice enough discretion when critiquing restaurants to provide legitimate reviews. Lyndey Milan, Food Director of the Australian’s Women’s Weekly argues this point saying that although she is still recognized after getting her dinner guest to book in their name, the restaurant can yes, change the table and service, but they cannot change the menu, nor quality of food, and the reviewer should be savvy enough to be aware of the happenings at other tables (Wight, 2006). In rebuttal is Simon Longstaff, executive director of the St James Ethics Centre who states:
I don’t want to read a review of what was the one and only special meal that was cooked in the kitchen in the past fortnight, because that betrays my reason for reading it… I have to rely upon the fact that the service experienced, the food eaten, had all been prepared on the assumption that whoever has been reviewing was just an ordinary punter. So then, any critic working under these circumstances …I think, is deceiving themselves and ultimately they are engaging in deceptive conduct” (Wight, 2006, p.36).
Complicating the issue of ethical dilemmas in food writing is to mention free meals. It is suburban Newspapers that often operate under these unethical circumstances. Wight explains that “most of the Cumberland Press newspapers publish weekly reviews of local establishments but only in 2005 did they begin to discreetly label them as advertorial” (Wight, 2006, p.36). Consisting of only positive content, these reviews are obviously the result of free meals or similar offers like free travel and or products. The MEAA provides guidelines directly relevant to this unethical conduct that states “do not allow personal interest, or any belief, commitment, payment, gift or benefit, to undermine your accuracy, fairness or independence” (Wight, 2006, p.37). However, as put by Lyndey Milan, “you can never write about something that you have accepted for nothing… and that is what people need to understand” (Wight, 2006, p.37).
Acknowledgement, however, needs to be given to the potential level of power that food media can wield on consumer choice, as well as negative consequences that may be detrimental to consumers, employers, and the food industry. This is the very reason why restaurants launch legal litigation for defamation against food critics because of the potential loss of income that may result from the public’s automatic response to an unfavorable review (Wight, 2006, p.52).
Exemplifying such situations are the cases of renowned chef Neil Perry’s pony-tail mockery, as well as the Sydney Blue Angel and Coco Rocco incidents. In 1999, forty well-known chefs and restaurateurs from Sydney, coerced by an article published in the Sydney Morning Herald that launched a personal attack on Chef Neil Perry and his restaurant, wrote the editor of the Herald complaining about the quality of restaurant reviews published. The article in question, said that Perry’s trademark pony-tail was looking a little limp and then went on to report on the recent downgrade his restaurant received in the Good Food Guide. Demonstrating a situation where retaliation occurred in a more legal oriented manner is the 1984 Lobster Case where a food critic for the Sydney Morning Herald was taken to court by the Blue Angel restaurant as a result of the negative remarks he made in his review, saying the restaurant’s Lobster dish was “cooked until every drop of juice and joy in the thing had been successfully eliminated, leaving a charred husk of a shell containing meat that might have been an albino walrus” (Wight, 2006, p.56). The critic ultimately failed in his defense because he couldn’t prove his review was fair comment. Conversely, in 2003, restaurant CoCo Rocco took a reviewer to court for apparent defamation. The court however, found that the critics comments “unpalatable food” and “stay at home” in the Sydney Morning Herald were all opinion and not presented as fact and therefore deemed the critics defense successful (Wight, 2006; Paish, 2011).
With no specific code of ethics to uphold, it comes down to the individual reviewer’s capability to discern the most ethical way to behave. These choices are what weeds out the amateurs from the professional critics. However, in the cyber world where anyone can publish content, ethical behaviour is even fewer and further between. It is for this reason that the Food Blogger Code of Ethics was introduced in 2009 by two hobby food bloggers – Leah Greenstein and Brooke Burton. According to them “professional journalists, amateur food writers and gastro-diarists alike have embraced the blog as an effective, informal format to reach hungry readers, or simply share their experiences – the web is like a great big dinner party and everyone is invited” (2009). Blogger, journalist, and editor Dianne Jacob, explains that bloggers have changed the world of restaurant reviewing significantly, with restaurants now holding opening events solely for bloggers as well as providing them with special treatment in order to build rapport (2011). However, as the blogging world expands exponentially, the reputation of food bloggers as unfair, highly critical, untrained and power hungry has become more and more notorious. Greenstein and Burton became concerned that bloggers were becoming unfairly judged and so hoped to give the community a better reputation by creating the code which consists of 5 major points: be accountable i.e. act as a professional whether writing anonymously or not; be thorough; be fair and civil; reveal bias i.e. disclose when writing for or about a person of emotional connection; disclose freebies; and follow the rules of a good journalist (Greenstein & Burton, 2009). Each infringement of these rules will cost the guilty party up to $11,000, in addition to any law suits initiated by private parties.
The most recent example of such a situation is the Kuwait blogger incident. According to online sources, "A recently opened Benihana branch in Kuwait sued 248am.com, a well known Kuwaiti blog, for posting a bad restaurant review about its food, asking for the blog to be shut and more than $17,500 in damages (5000 KD). Kuwaiti bloggers everywhere have announced their support for the reviewing blogger; even though it is highly unlikely the restaurant will get anything from the court, since journalists are almost always favored in libel cases in Kuwaiti courts” (Samzenpous, 2011; Friedman, 2011).
However, bloggers aren’t the only online publishers that can be accused of defamation. Facebook users and Tweeters must also be aware of what comments they upload as they too are just as responsible for their actions. The check-in application on the Facebook phone app, introduces a both an interactive yet risky method for people to share their thoughts on food establishments. The few moments it takes users to check-in with a comment like “worst sushi ever” can just as quickly spread like wildfire across the social network platform and potentially reach a stakeholder of that particular establishment. The comment publisher can then face devastating consequences if the stakeholder decides to act on what was ultimately a ‘review’. Other examples of unethical behaviour in the social media sphere, are situations where tweeters have emotional or personal connections with the owners and or staff of certain establishments they are tweeting about. SF Foodie editor, John Birdsall, says:
“What are the rules of food journalism in the era of Twitter? That question came to mind last week when we noticed this tweet scrolling slowly down our feed: ‘7x7bitsbites Tacolicious open until midnight. Yes, there is late night in the Marina beyond the Brazen Head’. Bits + Bites is the food blog of 7x7 magazine. And unless you've done a bit of poking around the site, you might not know that 7x7 senior eat and drink editor Sara Deseran (who wrote the tweet) has more than a passing interest in whether or not readers show up at Tacolicious. She just happens to be its owner” (2010).
Though Deseran claimed she has always provided disclaimers stating her professional ties with the restaurant, the question of ethics still poses a significant issue. So where do we draw the line?
According to Davis in A Taste for New York “preserving food for [all future generations] in any format so that it can be digested mentally as well as physically is an important step in the process of turning food into a cultural object” (Davis, 2009). But, with food journalism so fragmented, so too are the ethics that supposedly govern it (Wight, 2006). Though the craft has not yet seen its final days, without solid ethical foundations to support it, the future integrity of food journalism lay on uncertain ground. Fortunately, the future of food writing itself isn’t so uncertain. It will continue to reach the public via both online and print mediums, but the ‘journalism’ part of the equation seems to be what’s at risk of getting lost in the shamble (Marx, 2010).
References
Austin Food Bloggers Alliance. (2011). Code of Ethics. Retrieved from http://austiAnfoodbloggers.org/about/code-of-ethics/
Davis, M. (2009). A Taste for New York: Restaurant Reviews, Food Discourse, and the Field of Gastronomy in America. Ann Arbor, Michigan: ProQuest LLC.
Friedman. (2011). Food Blogger Allegedly Sued by Restaurant for Bad Review. Retrieved from http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2011/02/food-blogger-allegedly-sued-by-restaurant-for-bad-review/17842/
Greenstein & Burton. (2009). Blogger Code of Ethics. Retrieved from http://foodethics.wordpress.com/
Jacob. (2011). 5 Ways Bloggers Changed Restaurant Reviewing. Retrieved from http://diannej.com/blog/2011/09/5-ways-bloggers-changed-restaurant-reviewing/
Main Restaurant Directory. (no date). Restaurant Reviewer Code of Ethics. Retrieved from http://mainerestaurants.com/critics/restaurant-reviewer-code-of-ethics/
Marx. (2010). Future of Food Journalism Is Fragmented, Niche-Oriented, and Possibly Too Concerned With Keith McNally's Ass Retrieved from http://blogs.villagevoice.com/forkintheroad/2010/02/future_of_food.php
Paish. (2011). Sydney restaurateurs win legal battle over ‘bad restaurant review’. Retrieved from http://www.ausfoodnews.com.au/2011/12/02/sydney-restaurateurs-win-legal-battle-over-bad-restaurant-review.html
Samzenpous. (2011). Blogger Sued by Restaurant for Bad Review. Retrieved from http://idle.slashdot.org/story/11/02/01/1511236/blogger-sued-by-restaurant-for-bad-review
Birdsall. (2010). The Ethics of Food Journalism in a World of Tweets. Retrieved from http://blogs.sfweekly.com/foodie/2010/01/what_are_the_rules_of.php
Wight. (2006). Edible Ethics. Retrieved from http://digital.library.adelaide.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/2440/42921/1/02whole.pdf