The digestion of digital food news — Are we byting off more than we can chew?
“It has nowhere to go but up.”
Fran Brennan, journalist and co-founder of the popular food news aggregating website, Food News Journal, comments in response to the future of digital media and where it might be headed with particular regards to the food writing community.
Brennan, along with Shelly Peppel, a San Francisco-based food writer, joined forces back in 2009 to create Food News Journal to make it easier for people to find interesting and relevant articles trending within the food industry. On their website, they hand-select articles from various online news organizations ranging from The New York Times to Slashfood in which topics about food and drink are covered.
With the abundance of social-digital synapses coursing through us and competing for our attention on a daily basis, a news aggregating project of that scale and magnitude was a blessing by many. “Who has time to sort through all the websites?” Brennan points out. “There was no one doing food aggregation when we started. We kind of just hashed the plan to aggregating it all in one spot. We enjoyed it.”
While the birth of the World Wide Web was a major impetus for giving people opportunities to network, connect, and share with others on a grander scale, it wasn’t until the social media boom that the full extent of reaching out and giving our voice a digital microphone so to speak, was realized.
Image courtesy of Idea Go
Today, millions of food bloggers across the world click away on their keyboards sharing kitchen stories, swapping recipes, and dishing up on the latest food fads. Tweets are sent and recycled, Facebook pages are liked and shared. More than ever, branding oneself across the social media scene is key.
“That model didn’t used to exist,” notes Dianne Jacobs, editor, writing coach, and author of Will Write for Food. A journalist for over thirty years, Jacobs has seen the number of changes proliferate across the food writing profession. She laments on the growing influx of news publications unwilling to pay writers, food bloggers and journalists alike, for their contributions. For many food bloggers the opportunity to write a piece for an online website, payment or no, is seen as a major pat on the back for a job well done as well as a golden ticket to perpetual social web stardom. But for the accomplished food journalist who’s been in the game for years and knows the ins and outs of writing quality content, it’s a stinging slap to the face.
“Expect experienced journalists to write for free,” Jacobs quips. “We didn’t used to.”
Quite so. According to Sara Henry, a freelance writer, food blogger for Lettuce Eat Kale, and contributer to Bay Area Bites — a KQED-produced news site, writers like herself, “…were compensated — handsomely — for their time and talents at rates comparable to print outlets. We’re talking fees in the thousands for reported stories, usually at a rate of $1 a word or higher.”
Those figures are rare these days.
Due in large part to the prevalence of social media and the immediacy it posits for people within food culture society, it’s increasingly evident that one no longer has to be a professional journalist to capture the attention of an audience and be successful at it.
It comes as no surprise then, that more and more businesses are fitting their spurs and saddling up on the bandwagon to make their way toward the new social media-driven frontier.
Social media pioneers such as Facebook and Twitter have taken brand recognition, customer outreach, and community-building to a higher level, providing entrepreneurs with greater methods to increase their following and expand their company.
Metro Detroit-based The Hungry Dudes, a website dedicated to showcasing the best of Michigan’s eateries, utilizes social networking tools like Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr to communicate with their fans.
Two years ago, Joe Hakim, along with Henry Balanon co-founded The Hungry Dudes or Two Hungry Dudes as it was called then to highlight the Michigan restaurant scene. What began as a passion project for two foodies quickly turned into one of Detroit’s most exclusive go-to sites for the best locavore food photography and restaurant reviews.
Hakim reflects on the impact social media has on The Hungry Dudes and explains why it’s important:
Within the realm of education, specifically the Culinary Arts program, the emphasis on technology and using it to supplement student’s learning has increased exponentially over the past several years. Students especially have become proficient in absorbing, synthesizing, and relaying information from online sources. The benefits of the Internets’ means for efficiency and immediacy are acknowledged by teachers and students alike.
In this next video clip, Alice Gannon-Boss, a Culinary Arts program instructor at Washtenaw Community College discusses how these changes have affected her curriculum and teaching style and Heather Finch, a Culinary Arts student at Washtenaw Community College touches on the positive value Facebook provides for customer outreach.
Without question, the gustation of social media and digital news has a striking resemblance to the way we pick our foods at the local salad bar. We ask ourselves,
‘What do I feel like having today?’
and
‘Is this good for me?’
Your plate might look different than the persons’ next to you but that’s the beauty of it. You decide what you put on your plate. You decide what’s important to you.
Now it’s just a matter of not getting indigestion.
The New York Times’ Article on Anonymous Commenting: My Response
I can vividly remember the first time I logged into AOL.
From the despairingly long wait it took to connect, to the screeching robotic sound of my dial-up connection trying to will its way through, and the ubiquitously famous greeting of, “You’ve got mail,” no matter now how much I cringe when I look back to those early days of the Internet, I certainly remember the excitement of entering this new social portal where I could float around as my screen name “Alanys Sedai” and just be.
At that time, discussion boards, forums, and newsgroups were popular. These were places people congregated to share their opinions and thoughts on similar interests. I was an active participant on several of these social hub spots, oftentimes commenting numerous times a day. It was fun and exhilarating to connect and make friends with a wide range of people all around the world.
For the most part, people tended to give their real names when contributing to posts on the boards. We definitely all knew each other and trusted what we wrote. However, I can recall a few times when a new person would show up, post something melodramatic and obscure and leave, never to be seen again. It would cause us to scratch our chins wondering, ‘Who the hell was that?’
The New York Times’ article on anonymous commenting discusses the sudden rise by news organizations to re-think their policies.
There’s good argument to side with obliterating anonymity all together based on the reasons why someone would want to hide behind that cowl of disguise. But for me, giving people incentives to not post anonymously would be an even better option. Quick sign-ins using popular social network accounts like Facebook and Twitter make it much more intuitive and free-flowing for users to take part in conversations across many comment boards. I can tell you I’m more apt to comment when sites give me this option as opposed to having to create a completely new alias specifically for the site.
People are either going to offer quality and thoughtful information or they’re not. Whether they’re using their own name, a superfluous screen name, or the anonymous tag, they’re still going to have their own opinions — dreadful and malignant as many are.
The Produce Station; an Ann Arborite foodies’ paradise
The Produce Station; All photos by Stephanie Russell
Nestled alongside the Ann Arbor Railroad on South State Street sits The Produce Station, a small specialty foods market devoted to providing the freshest and highest quality ingredients available. In addition to offering fresh produce, they also boast a wide selection of locally farmed cheeses, charcuterie, wines, and specially prepared meals made in-house.
Ready-to-plant pansies in their garden department
In the Spring, they showcase nature’s kaleidescope of colors by introducing the seasons’ first floral buds. Pansies and tulips dot the outside of the market, greeting customers with their cheerful hues.
Bright, cheerful blooms herald the beginning of Spring
In business since 1986, The Produce Station continues to stick to it’s core beliefs cultivated by creator and owner Rick Peshkin, who emphasized great tasting quality food, passion, and high customer service.
The Produce Station prides itself on delivering the freshest quality produce on a daily basis. Linda Munsell, a store manager working there for 20 years explained, “We go to Eastern Market five days a week to get a lot of our produce.” Over the years, they have developed strong relationships with local farmers. “We have a farmer we go to for corn, blueberries, and raspberries. And on the western side of the state we use a farmer that grows peaches and apples.”
Indeed, everything tucked inside their market gleams and shines, having that “just-picked-off-the-vine” quality to it that any food lover would be attracted to. This would also be the spot to grab those gourmet, hard-to-find items, like baby artichokes, patty pan squash, and rapini.
Carrots, turnips, and parsnips
The Produce Station is the kind of place where you go in needing to buy just a few things but end up leaving with an entire basketful. From delightful morsel samples of vintage cheddar to locally-produced Jerusalem Garden hummus, temptations abound, leaving the serious foodie provoked and with no other choice but to take the delicacies home.
Fresh asparagus decorate crates on the store front
“Everything is always so fresh and gorgeous here,” says local Ann Arbor resident Patricia Sorn. “I love their salad bar. I come here for lunch all the time.”
Just newly renovated, The Produce Station’s salad bar houses a wide array of fresh leafy greens and vegetables as well as a variety of accoutrements perfect for lunch or dinner.
If you’re looking for a sweet gem of a market in Ann Arbor, The Produce Station is your ticket to finding the very best ingredients with an emphasis on local fare and passionate service.
The Produce Station
1629 S. State Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
734.663.7848
Store Hours: Mon – Sat 8 am – 9 pm; Sun 8 am – 8 pm
Find them on Facebook and Twitter.
The NY Times’ What the Still Photo Still Does Best: My Response
President Barack Obama looks at candy on display at Donckers in Marquette, Mich., February 10, 2011. (Photo by Pete Souza)
As a food blogger, I rely heavily on my Nikon D3000 to capture the true essence of my creations. Though I am not a professional food photographer or photojournalist, I understand the importance of taking quality images with a great camera and editing them for the public’s eye.
In Hank Klibanoff’s piece on ‘What the Still Photo Still Does Best,’ he presents the question on merits and challenges of using a traditional camera over the more widely popular smartphones that yield both picture-taking and video-streaming qualities. It is definitely more convenient to carry and shoot pictures with a smartphone. Considering most people carry a smartphone or at least a cellphone with picture-taking capabilities, it can be perfect for those spontaneous photo moments.
Along with taking still pictures, many smartphones now have the ability to shoot video, oftentimes in HD quality. In recent years, people armed with these video-streaming smartphones have taken to the streets and recorded footage from an array of different events — some comical, some traumatic, and some compelling, to be viewed by thousands online via YouTube or other public video-viewing platforms. And with social media being at the forefront these days, many videos are shared, deconstructed, edited, zoomed-in, and uploaded again. This is what happened a couple of years ago when the close-up video image still of Neda Agha Soltan went viral.
According to Stokes Young, director of multimedia at MSNBC.com, “the nonprofessional picture increasingly has the possibility of punching through to center stage.” With photo- and video-capturing smartphones so popular, it is much more accessible for the public to share their images with the world.
President Barack Obama and daughters Sasha and Malia eat shaved ice at Island Snow Hawaii in Kailua, Hawaii, Dec. 27, 2010. (Photo by Pete Souza)
For me, video stills cannot replace the quality and quiet beauty of an image captured by a traditional camera.
But, at the same time, it’s important to integrate both styles or philosophies into your work to get the best of both worlds.
With videos you get a sense of rawness, a real sense of the world around us that people can easily relate and connect to. And from within that video, you can pluck and trim any image you want for a still.
Photographs captured by cameras can be thought-provoking, moving, inspiring. An entire story can be told by just one image. Sometimes the meaning is clear, other times it’s not. I appreciate that the message is up for personal interpretation.
I anticipate the future for photojournalism to be a mixture of both traditional photography methods and images taken from video stills. In this way, you have the creative license to tell a story in multiple ways to a wide audience.
Foods News Journal Linking Philosophy
Food News Journal (FNJ) prides themselves with delivering daily food-related articles in the form of links from around the Web. So, naturally, their website contains a plethora of relevant links to a variety of news organizations, food magazines, and foodie beat blogs.
The links are divided into five sections — Food News (particular to each day), Food for Thought, Best of the Blogs, Wine and Spirits, and The Business of Food. Each individual link opens up a new page.
FNJ in and of itself is akin to a beat shell. Unlike a traditional news organization website which covers a broad range of topics, such as, technology, health, and entertainment, FNJ solely focuses on food news. Everything that is seen on their website is related to food, from their advertisements to calendar of events.
All of their links seemed to work just fine for me today. Considering how “link heavy” their website is, I can only imagine how tedious it must be to double-check each link before uploading to ensure it works properly for the public.
FNJ tends to word their links in newsy style, that is, short and to-the-point, in an effort lure and intrigue the reader. I did notice inconsistencies, however, in terms of how the words appear on each particular link — some of them are uppercase while others are lowercase (see below).
(Image courtesy of Food News Journal)
*Disregard the grayed out ones. Those are the stories I read. 🙂
EMU Retires Earl Boykins #11 Jersey
On February 27, Eastern Michigan University (EMU) recognized basketball legend Earl Boykins and officially retired his #11 jersey during half-time of the EMU vs. Western Michigan University (WMU) basketball game.
Boykins, a graduate of EMU, played guard position in EMU’s basketball team during the 1994-1998 school year. He was named All-American in his Senior year at EMU. He currently plays professional basketball for the Milwaukee Bucks.
Overall, Boykins is having a good season with the Bucks with his most notable game from March 9 playing against the Cleveland Cavaliers where he scored 18 points in the first half. The Bucks won over the Cavaliers 110-90.
Over Spring Break, Philip Hang, an EMU alumni and a current Washtenaw Community College staff member working in the Department of Lifelong Learning, was at the EMU vs. WMU basketball game specifically to see Boykins and witness his jersey retired. Hang is a life-long fan of Boykins and was particularly excited about attending the monumental event. He sat front and center and was able to watch the ceremony in detail. When he attempted to take some photographs, however, he was forced to put his camera away by security officials.
EMU Focus Online, a faculty and staff digital newspaper, showcases a close-up photo of Boykins during the ceremony which you can find here.
It is not the first time EMU has paid homage to past alumni basketball players.
On Feb 5, Laurie Byrd’s #4 jersey was retired in a half-time ceremony during the EMU vs. University of Buffalo game. She is the first woman basketball player to have her jersey displayed at EMU. Byrd continues to hold the highest record for all-time leading scores within the program at EMU. Currently, Byrd is an assistant coach for the New York Liberty women’s basketball team.
Food News Journal: Website Design Critique
Food News Journal (FNJ) uses a simplistic approach to their overall website design. Unlike the traditional grid layout of a website where the navigation bar is either on the left hand side or beneath the masthead, FNJ showcases a basic form of it on the right side of their page. There, they provide links to exclusive areas of their website as well as opportunities for email subscription and information on website contributors.
FNJ’s web page has fairly good usability. Everything is straight to the point, convenient to get to, and easy on the eyes. As far as page unity is concerned, it appears they tried to use a similar scheme to tie it together, with black, orange, and green seemingly being the primary colors there. It should be noted, however, that they use a handful of different fonts and sizes which dampens the cohesive factor of the web page. In addition, their placement of widgets and social media links is a bit clumsy — perhaps grouping them all together would have been a better choice.
Their use of contrast is mediocre. For the most part, FNJ uses different font colors to distinguish the section of the website you are on, but some of them are either in bold, italics, or another font class entirely, which makes it difficult to tell if it’s a link or not.
Web page hierarchy is something they do excel at. Right away, your eyes focus on the most important aspect of the website — their food news section down the middle of the screen. It is also evident that FNJ wants to make sure you know exactly where you are as the size of their nameplate is astonishingly large.
FNJ is certainly consistent with their web page design layout. No matter which link you decide to pursue within their site, the overall feel of their page remains the same. That is, the navigation bar, widgets and links, and advertisements are located in identical spots each time.
I would recommend sprucing up their web page design by eliminating some of the boxes that enclose sections of the website. With so many of them, it gives the page a cluttered and messy appearance. Also, I would suggest looking at different options for distinguishing between the various areas of the site.
okie dokie artichokie – a food blog
For the past several months, I’ve been working on my food blog @ okie dokie artichokie. She will be the focus for this class’ brand development project.
Through her, I hope to encourage people to have more fun and less fear while cooking.
Although I grew up surrounded by great food, I never truly delved into it until my late twenties. At first, I was a true hazard in the kitchen. My first Thanksgiving turkey came out of the oven raw, with semi-frozen packets of giblets forgotten inside. I think the next day I almost burned the apartment down by accidentally torching french bread pizza in the toaster oven.
But, the more I cooked, the better I became. I garnered a sense of confidence in the kitchen, which translated to fun times and great food!
I bring my Peruvian heritage to center stage by elevating classic, traditional dishes into more sophisticated and modern ones. I also develop recipes and shoot my own photos.
okie dokie artichokie has a Facebook fan page as well as a Twitter page (which I use dually as a personal and professional one).
I’ll leave you with a couple teasers from my most recent food blog posts:
Fettuccine Alfredo with Thai Red Curry and Lump Crab Meat
Sweet & Salty Dark Fudge Brownies with Pretzel Bites and Peanut Butter Frosting
The New York Times & ‘Controlled Serendipity’: My Response
When I first created my Twitter account a year ago, I felt overwhelmed and confused with the esoteric scheme of things. I didn’t fully understand what it was for, how to use it, and quite frankly, what to say in that tiny little box. Do I type, “Going to the store to buy some eggs!” or something more prolific like, “The chicken or the egg. Which came first?”
Clearly, coming up with poignant, thought-provoking tweets was not my forte. I stayed away from those.
But, with time, I got to know Twitter a little bit more and Twitter got to know me. We became happy friends.
I learned all the basics, like how to write a tweet, how to re-tweet something (and more importantly, why), how to include links and shorten them, and of course, how to follow people and be followed.
I quickly got the hang of it and soon thereafter, fell in love with Twitter. I started making real solid connections with people I found intriguing that shared my same sense of curiosity for things that mattered the most. I became intertwined in the social web of foodies, chefs, gamers, social media gurus, and writers. The camaraderie I feel being surrounded by such interesting people with my same likes is wonderful and I no doubt have Twitter to thank for this.
After reading Nick Bilton’s article on The New York Times with regards to Twitter, our natural thirst for knowledge, and our growing desire to harvest and share it with other people, I was fascinated and could especially relate to his first couple paragraphs.
When I finish writing this blog post, I will Tweet it.
I will copy this link, go to my Twitter account and spend a minute writing an abbreviated (yet hopefully catchy) description of this piece. And I’ll follow the same actions on Facebook and other social networks.
I follow a fairly similar routine when I finish posts for my food blog.
Like Atul Arora and Maria Popova, both of which who were interviewed by Bilton in his article, I spend some time perusing Twitter on a daily basis, looking for news, ideas, and insights on things that I find interesting. Twitter plays a major role on how I find out about the latest news. If I happen to think a particular story/picture/video is awesome, I most definitely re-tweet it to share with others. Sharing is caring, after all.
Popova calls her information-filtering process “controlled serendipity,” to explain how she sorts the interesting and relevant links via websites and Twitter followers to further share with other people.
Of course, sharing cool information isn’t new. We’ve all been known to nudge a friend and say, “Hey, did you hear what happened to [insert famous person here]?”or to send an email out to a select group of people to direct them to a neat link.
But now, we’re spreading news and interesting tid bits of information on a much grander and impersonal (depending on which way you look at it) scale via Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking sites.
For me, I rather appreciate the ability to funnel all things exciting to me and have it easily accessible whenever, wherever. It’s like my own private magazine, book, website, newspaper, cookbook. I’ve tailored it especially for me and it’s a perfect fit.
I think I will Tweet this now.
Food News Journal: Twitter
Food News Journal (FNJ) does have 1 Twitter account that they have easily accessible from their home page on their web site.
Their Twitter feeds are updated several times a day on a daily basis. The tone of their tweets is fairly transparent. On most occasions you can get the sense that there really is a live person behind the account, making light jokes and truly endorsing interesting and unique people and story links.
FNJ almost always includes links in their tweets.
They currently do not link to staff Twitter accounts. I did a rough search on Twitter for the few writers that contribute to FNJ’s site but came up empty-handed. They do, however, have a link to their emails for private inquiries.
I do think it would be beneficial for them to include staff writers’ Twitter accounts, if available. FNJ has a fairly big following, with a little more than 11,400 followers at the moment. People obviously like the service they provide and would no doubt follow the people behind the scenes, making it happen, in order to get even more interesting information regarding food news.
Stephanie Russell 