The new shape of food journalism and reviews

Posted by & filed under Morsels, restaurant bookings.

Some things creep up on you. Others arrive in clusters. The evolution of food journalism and reviewing in Australia is a mixture of both with the dumping of two important restaurant critics in Sydney and Melbourne, the replacement of the editors of two major newspaper food sections at Fairfax and the elevation of Yelp! as the most likely winner in the food review stakes. So what happened? First to the Yelp! news, which is really significant. The latest IOS update for the Apple iPhone swapped Google Maps for Apple maps. Not only are they better looking than the Google product but businesses featured are Yelp! listings. That’s very big for Yelp!, which only launched in Australia earlier this year and is still overshadowed by Urbanspoon in Melbourne and a few other cities and Eatability (which was bought by telecoms company Optus this year) in Sydney. Apparently the Apple iPhone accounted for about half of all visits to Google Maps. Now Yelp! has this kind of visibility making it likely that the numbers of reviews there will accelerate. This is actually a good thing as Yelp! has an algorythm that prevents one-off snarky reviews appearing in its listings. One week earlier both Stephen Downes and Simon Thomsen were dumped as food critics by the Herald Sun in Melbourne and the Daily Telegraph in Sydney respectively. The last of their reviews are appearing in the Saturday lifestyle (as opposed to the Tuesday Taste section) liftout of the papers and as yet it is uncertain how they will continue. The editors of Epicure in The Age took redundancy and the editor of Good Living and other members of staff were redeployed in advance of a relaunch next week with a fresh look and, hopefully, structural improvements. Good living will be renamed Good Food. And it looks like the future of food writing at Fairfax will come under a single uber-editor – Janne Apelgren editor of The Age Good Food guide in Melbourne has been mooted but I’m told this may not be the case – just as a few years back the News Ltd taste section consolidated. Meanwhile, I understand that the Sunday Herald Sun is dumping its food pages and editor Wendy Hargreaves is leaving. Compared to the Yelp! news this is as dry as eating a packet of Carrs Table Water Crackers without any cheese. But what it means is a… Read more »

Save Epicure. Or build something new?

Posted by & filed under media, Morsels.

The food and drink business has a love hate relationship with its media. They are either moaning that newspaper sections and magazines don’t write about them. Or when they do they get it wrong. Then there is the thorny issue of critics, the journalists that probably get the most stick for not rating restaurants (or anything subject to critique) quite as highly as the owners would like. When I started my own food magazine Tomato (which became this blog) eight years ago in 2004 I met many restaurant owners who moaned about Epicure, the food section which appears in the Tuesday Age. They felt it didn’t support the industry. What they didn’t get is that most jounalists (and critics) don’t feel they are part of the industry they write about. They are part of the media industry and are there to inform, entertain and keep an industry honest. But now according to a report from Crikey Epicure, which already publishes Sydney produced recipes and stories, is about to change name and publish more Sydney content. Basically, Epicure is going to become a bit like News Ltd’s Taste section, which republishes Matt Preston, various recipes, wine critic Tony Love and a bit more nationally while local critics write reviews. Suddenly the industry loves Epicure and is campaigning on Twitter through use of the hastag #saveepicure. Naturally, The Age denies any changes and is at odds with the Crikey report. What’s more interesting in The Age article is that all it says is that it won’t close and they are committed to local content. But that can still mean a name change and Sydney editors controlling the paper. Then this arrives in my inbox: For those not up to speed, Crikey published a piece on Friday suggesting that Epicure was going to undergo a significant change. Read the article here: http://www.crikey.com.au/2012/07/27/ages-epicure-to-be-a-half-baked-steak-and-sydney-pie/ Following this, there were many of us who started to push to #saveepicure I received an email from Andrew Holden this morning that did not answer the questions that I put to him and note that others have received the exact same letter. His vague response has not convinced me of anything. I now have it on excellent authority that Fairfax is not telling us the truth. I also understand the following is fact: The name will change. There will be one Editor between Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra, with a deputy… Read more »