Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

> But not too many established critics would concede,
> or even allow the possibility of, their own irrelevance.

Does this come as a surprise to anyone? "You know what, I'm being paid to do what many others do for free. Please eliminated my job."

The question should not be, "Are bloggers as good as professional journalists?" I would turn it around: How are professional journalists better than bloggers?

As someone who was recently let go from my local hometown newspaper (I wasn't a writer or a critic, either; I did the "behind the scenes" printing stuff), I have to admit to being personally bothered by the intense navel-gazing of the newspaper industry. Instead of making changes and doing something to help themselves, they're just complaining about it and laying off a large amount of their staff.

I'm 25; a member of a generation raised to be self-assured and self-indulgent. Sure, we could read the newspaper and the opinions of other people, but why the heck should we when we can just write our own opinion in our blogs? Obviously I have NOTHING against food blogs, nor do I think that blogs caused the (slow, incredibly annoying) death of newspaper...I think that newspapers didn't keep up. I'll read a review of a restaurant from a professional food critic and regard it with the same amount of decency as a review I read on OpenTable.

Food critics will never be obsolete, nor will their established industry in print -- they will simply have to change with the times. Likewise, every meal at a restaurant will never be the same, and every experience is different; 10 people could love a place, 10 others could hate it, they all could have ordered the same meal. Nowadays we get that full view of places thanks to sites like this one (and Chow, and Yelp, and...). It doesn't make a printed food critic obsolete at all, it just makes them a part of something much bigger -- they're a single viola in the orchestra, not the conductor, though they still may rank as first chair in their group.

Likewise with the newspaper industry: they aren't obsolete, they've just lost their status at the top of the pile and they have no idea how to get back to the top, not realizing that being at the top might not be possible when there's so many voices and opinions out there.

I never think it's a bad idea for the general population to have a voice, and I tend to distrust those who do. For example, we've all heard the stories of professional restaurant critics who go to lengths in order to mask their identities since service changes depending on the customer. Perhaps this is why restaurants can be so hostile to blogs which voice the opinions of the average person, those of us who don't get the start treatment. Furthermore, I'm dong a PhD in art history. Does this mean that my opinion of art is the only valid one because I do it for a living (or will someday)? Are you not allowed to like or dislike the things you see at MoMA because you're not a professional? I think not.

I absolutely think that print critics will go the way of the dinosaurs. (Print itself will go the way of the dinosaurs--it's far too expensive to produce relative to websites.) But there will always be influential people on the web whose voices carry farther and louder than others. Whether that's people being paid to write on a blog like this, or people doing it for free on Yelp, doesn't much matter.

What does matter is that restaurants won't be able to get away with preferentially treating critics over regular customers anymore. Hopefully this will mean we all get better food and service! Restaurants will be on their best behavior, frightened that any disappointed guest could air their grievances so publicly.

man, they'll never be obsolete as long as there are newspapers. the readership is so much stronger than food blogs. you can't compare restaurant critics to any ol' food blogger, you have to specifically compare it to a restaurant blog. comparing a critic to a home recipes blog just doesn't make sense.

if you just count the restaurant bloggers out there, very very few even sniff the numbers that read Bruni every week. The newspapers just need to grow up. They need to learn how to monetize their content before they become obsolete. It's a shame that in the beginning they didn't all collude to get behind a pay-wall. Now they're all scrambling to see who can lay people off the fastest.

Food bloggers aren't making restaurant critics obsolete. Newspapers are doing that because they can't stay in business.

I would not let any critic, certainly not a blogger or commentator, determine my restaurant choice. Criticism, food, music, literature, whatever it is, is meant as a guide. But the primary differences between blogging and journalism, and they are important differences, are balance and qualification.

Journalists in paid positions had to compete with any number of qualified applicants to get a job. With few exceptions, the qualifications of the person writing the article or review is going to be better just by virtue of competition. There is some skill involved in both writing and critique, you know? It is not about bestowing upon the world your amazing opinion.

Which brings me to balance; journalists, regardless of what the average person thinks, have the concept of balance thrust upon us from our first day on the school paper and in every job in which we ever work. (I suppose the obvious exception is Fox News where they think if you scream, “Fair and balanced” enough it makes it so…) We often fail, sometimes miserably but balance is, at least, the goal and that makes all the difference in the world.

The internet is an amazing world with some great voices to be heard; it’s just that there is an awful lot of noise to pick through in finding something worthwhile. As for the internet finally giving “the people a voice” (and newsflash, not all people actually deserve to be heard) Tim and Nina Zagat began doing that, in print, nearly 30 years ago.

I would think that most people are interested in what "real people" think, what they can really expect from their own viewpoint level, as opposed to what a perfect aesthete expects. Obviously with the high-end restaurants there's an element of window-shopping, but Bauer et al aren't going to make me spend my money there--a glowing review from a foodie friend will, someone whose tastes I know and trust, and also know that they didn't get special treatment because they were recognized.

@ Zach: I get what you're saying, and you're right that there's a lot of overlap, what with many reporters blogging and bloggers making a living from their work.

But there are differences, in that the average amateur blogger (ie, one not paid by a news provider) doesn't have to follow the same rules of fairness and accuracy that reporters do. They also don't have the same access to people and organizations, making it hard to report all sides of a story.

That said, in many cases, I think bloggers are better suited to report certain stories that benefit from a little opinion.