This is a new blog segment we want to do each night – a prep sheet for segments that are planned for the next day’s Eight Forty-Eight. Tomorrow at 9 am, David Hammond will be on the show talking about the use of social media by food journalists. Apparently, it’s all the rage to review or critique or talk about restaurant openings and food news on Twitter or FB or Friendster (not so much Friendster).

Here are the background materials for today’s study guide:

The most recent ethical dilemma started when ABC-7 (and former WBEZ contributor)  Steve Dolinsky tweeted from the opening of “Big Star” in Wicker Park.

Many different culinary industry professionals debated back and forth on Twitter and then they moved the discussion to Facebook. Here are some great entries from that thread:

Lisa Shames:

With Twitter, Yelp, etc., the ‘reporting’ playing field has definitely changed. But just because you can do a day-one review that doesn’t necessarily mean you should (leave that to those who don’t do restaurant reviewing for a living, I say, because you know they will anyways).

Alpana Singh:

Here is another way to look at it, I am a sommelier – people know that I have a career based in wine. If I were to tweet about a particular wine and describe it’s attributes, flavors and textures and indicate good or bad how I felt about it then how could this not be interpreted as a review? People associate me with wine, they know it my expertise and anything I say about wine is my assessment of that particular product and is this not the very definition of a review?

David Hammond:

I’ve read back through Steve’s comments and I’m hardly seeing any words that could be construed as evaluative. Steve talks about what he ordered and, yes, at one point says he wishes Big Star was everywhere, but I’m just not seeing how any of this can be considered a review.

Following the ins and outs of a discussion is not easy on Twitter, so if I’m missing something here, by all means let me know, but I’m just not seeing how Steve’s “established authority” (which one has to acknowledge) would lead one to a clearly positive or a negative conclusion regarding Big Star.

Chandra Ram:

You can argue that to cover anything (food, war, the White House) reveals a bias for the sheer fact that you chose to cover it, but I hope no one is suggesting that food writers should not tweet or otherwise post their dining activity, and leave that to the masses. Professional food writers will wait and offer a full review after the restaurant has settled in, and readers wanting the whole story will read those, too. If you are making life decisions based on anyone’s 140-character posts, you’ve got bigger issues than what type of taco to order.

Steve Dolinsky:

I certainly agree with sentiments of Mr. Jackson and Ms. Ram above. My life and work is all about eating and drinking. Nobody in our business “reviews” a place on opening night, (except in the Yelp Universe) and in fact, my job is not to assign ratings or stars or forks, etc. to places. I leave that to the professional eaters who must remain anonymous, such as Nagrant, Vettel, Kramer, Tamarkin, et al. I think with the exception of Tapas Valencia, which I admittedly jumped on too soon, I have never tweeted negatively on a place in the first week of business. As Jackson and Altshuler point out, Twitter allows me and my fellow food journalists to interact with our fellow passionate eaters. It allows two-way, instant communication.

Michael Nagrant:

The thing that bothers me most is this idea of disingenuously wanting to have it both ways. ” I want to be an influential food writer, but let me be also be a private citizen who can tweet their opinions as if they don’t matter.” You actually can have it that way, just don’t tweet about it. Grumble to your significant other.

Likewise, many in the Chicago food media community have become pretty liberal about their policies of accepting free meals or going to media previews. They make these fake arguments to themselves, “Well, I’m not a professional reviewer or I’m an editor, so it doesn’t matter,” or “I and my company can’t afford to check out all these places.” If you’re covering someone, even in a feature or editing capacity, you may not be reviewing, but you are giving tacit approval or choosing who gets heard. As a rule I think you need to put up that wall of not taking free stuff so your choices, as much as possible, reflect what you think is important, not what amongst everything you got for free, is important.

Great discussion points. Interesting, ey? Well listen into Eight Forty-Eight tomorrow to get more with the story…