The new shape of food journalism and reviews

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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 lot of talented but old school food writers out of a job and scavenging for crumbs among the digital publications out there or find something new to do.

Ten years ago when we had little choice in food reviews and news we probably would have cared. But do we now?

Personally, I think that food reviewers provide balance to the anarchy of online reviews. But food sections have become victims of the press release and persuasive PR. And that makes them a lot less interesting or entertaining than the wild west of online reviews.

Excuse the Magimixed metaphors.

What do you think?

Ed Charles is a journalist and digital consultant who spend the better part of the part two decades in Australia. He trained with IPC in London and has written for major international and national business and lifestyle titles. Establishing this blog in 2005, he was one of the first of a handful of food bloggers in Australia. He's spoken at the Melbourne Writers Festival and Emerging Writers Festival and has broadcasted regularly on food and digital media issues. He is currently writing a history of mankind told through food.

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