If you write or read food blogs or food-news-driven sites, Josh Ozersky’s article “Blog-Tied: How a Hunger for Clicks Drives New York’s Brutally Fickle Food Scene” is a must read. Ozersky did time as a writer on Grub Street and he lived to write about it. Here’s the money pull quote:
“I was the first editor of Grub Street, and those two years were, for all the excitement, a life radically wretched. I’ve been in a bad marriage, survived a doctoral program, suffered obsessive episodes requiring medication, lived with a girlfriend who worked as an escort, struggled to keep a business afloat, been in tax trouble and written nine books—and I have never felt the kind of pressure I did when I was helming Grub Street.”
Ozersky details the problems blogs restaurants and writers face in the nasty blogosphere.
“The blog ecology forces any potential restaurant to stress novel dishes and weird concepts because it needs to break through the noise.”
“The blogs give their blessings freely but withdraw them soon after: they’re like children who shower a puppy with adoration and then quickly regret its existence.”
I’m not asking you to cue the violins and feel sorry for anyone. I choose to swim in these shark invested waters but, honestly, it’s not always fun. Speaking from where I type, the behind-the-scenes world of the Dallas restaurant news business is wicked and full of back stabbers, liars, and cheaters who don’t “play” fair. Read Ozersky’s piece. And if you have a thought, I’d love to hear it.
