Saturday, October 18, 2008
AFJ ethics and business meeting
The ethical discussion panel brought up issues facing many of our members. It will probably be better for AFJ if I don't summarize a lot of that discussion here, but I encourage attendees to use the forums on our website to explore some of these issues further. I think the same is true for the business meeting.
AFJ with Jonathan Gold
Pulitzer Prize winner Jonathan Gold tried to write like Calvin Trillin and noted that the great thing about being a journalist was being able to call anyone up and tie them up for part of a day. He notes that you should be well read because you can't write well if you don't read well. He once had an editor who wold read copy aloud and you would anything to please him after hearing your prose fired back at you.
For readers the consumer part is the most interesting, but as a writer it's the least interesting part. For different audiences you have to explain different references. You don't explain bechamel to Gourmet readers; you don't explain Fat Boy Slim to readers of the LA Weekly.
The more you get paid, the more you get people denuding your prose style. At some of the slicks, a piece goes through 12 or 14 editors and you have to be strong to survive that process.
How does Gold find his spots? When he started in the 80s, LA was a food hot center, exporting chefs and trends. The ethnic immigration brought populations to LA that gave rise to more cuisine. It's odd to follow international geopolitics through the restaurants in your neighbhorhood.
You have to eat a lot of mediocre meals to find ones that stand out. He reads ethnic newspapers to skim the restaurant ads even if he doesn't read the language.
He tries to read as much as he can in English about a particular cuisine. He recommended The Complete Guide to Asian Food published in Australia (didn't catch the author's name).
He has a lot different Indian cookbooks> Personal favorite: Tasty Dishes from Waste Items, which includes multiple recipes for banana peels.
He doesn't think you need a lot of space for restaurant reviews. At Gourmet he wanted to do for restaurant writing what Pauline Kael did for film writing. For the first year, it's was good. For a writer, thinking about a restaurant for a month is a maddening intellectual exercise most restaurant can't stand up to.
For a restaurant review, if you talk about more than 8 or 10 dishes, you lose the readers, so dig deep into two or three.
Moderator Dallas Morning News critic Bill Addison asked how to keep it fresh after 25 years? Gold said if he thought about keeping it fresh, he'd be mad in a corner talking to himself. Keep reading. Cited an example of chemist who writes perfume reviews. Read it and 27 ways of describing something pop into your mind. As long as you keep what you're thinking fresh, your writing will be fresh.
First places with Shangdong cuisine were fascinating. The 14th one has to be really freaking good in order to merit attention.
A huge fad in LA and Houston in Cantonese community of Cajun food cooked by Vietnamese. Many of these will be gone in two year. There's a dynamic of faddishness in all restaurant cultures.
Gold writes 800-1,000 CounterIntelligence column, an advice column called Ask Mr. Gold and 600-word First Bites, which is three a week. Some restaurants are as good as they're going to get when they first open. However, Gold thinks some places settle into their groove in six weeks to 2 months after opening.
Most people who want to break into writing are doing a blog, and they will get better with adult supervision, Gold says. The Weekly advertised for someone to cover restaurant gossip, and was inundated with resumes. They will end probably going with the person who is already blogging about it.
The Pulitzer has meant Gold gets phone calls returned quicker. He's not getting calls as much for some freelance work, because people think he's too busy. He's not.
Gold says he often doesn't remember faces but can remember soup eaten 15 years ago and whether it's garnished with parsley or chevril.
He looks for a throughline of narrative in a dish. Not many chefs can do that. Sometimes he's not sure what he thinks until he finishes the piece. He's more descriptive than thumbs up or thumbs down.
Gold has gone to some restaurants at many as 17 times. Taiwanese cuisine is different with stinky tofu that smells like a dumpster, plus bitter melon that's bitter like cancer medicine and soups that taste like someone put out a cigar in them. People were enjoying the dishes and he didn't bring the cultural values to the cuisine. He kept going back, never loved it but could explain it.
He likes to lead stories with the food, but it depends. He works for a weekly owned by misers but likes value cuisines so his expenses don't compare with being at Gourmet with a $10,000 budget.
As for anonymity, most chefs know who you are. Gold doesn't do television, but has been photographed. He has chefs he's friends with and his wife is former food editor. He is willing to lose friends to write the review he has to write, and he has. Back in the days where he thought no one knew who he was, but would run into chefs who could tell him chapter and verse when he had been in.
He writes longer pieces in spurts, but jams out shorter pieces. Gold quoted Annie Lamott in saying the secret of good writing is a shitty first draft. He knows his own work well enough to find some of his own weaknesses. You also have to earn the first person. Don't be too fancy. It would be nice if there were more words for salty.
You are always better served by looking at your copy afterwards and striking out two of three adverbs. If they'renot too fruity, analogies are your friends.
For readers the consumer part is the most interesting, but as a writer it's the least interesting part. For different audiences you have to explain different references. You don't explain bechamel to Gourmet readers; you don't explain Fat Boy Slim to readers of the LA Weekly.
The more you get paid, the more you get people denuding your prose style. At some of the slicks, a piece goes through 12 or 14 editors and you have to be strong to survive that process.
How does Gold find his spots? When he started in the 80s, LA was a food hot center, exporting chefs and trends. The ethnic immigration brought populations to LA that gave rise to more cuisine. It's odd to follow international geopolitics through the restaurants in your neighbhorhood.
You have to eat a lot of mediocre meals to find ones that stand out. He reads ethnic newspapers to skim the restaurant ads even if he doesn't read the language.
He tries to read as much as he can in English about a particular cuisine. He recommended The Complete Guide to Asian Food published in Australia (didn't catch the author's name).
He has a lot different Indian cookbooks> Personal favorite: Tasty Dishes from Waste Items, which includes multiple recipes for banana peels.
He doesn't think you need a lot of space for restaurant reviews. At Gourmet he wanted to do for restaurant writing what Pauline Kael did for film writing. For the first year, it's was good. For a writer, thinking about a restaurant for a month is a maddening intellectual exercise most restaurant can't stand up to.
For a restaurant review, if you talk about more than 8 or 10 dishes, you lose the readers, so dig deep into two or three.
Moderator Dallas Morning News critic Bill Addison asked how to keep it fresh after 25 years? Gold said if he thought about keeping it fresh, he'd be mad in a corner talking to himself. Keep reading. Cited an example of chemist who writes perfume reviews. Read it and 27 ways of describing something pop into your mind. As long as you keep what you're thinking fresh, your writing will be fresh.
First places with Shangdong cuisine were fascinating. The 14th one has to be really freaking good in order to merit attention.
A huge fad in LA and Houston in Cantonese community of Cajun food cooked by Vietnamese. Many of these will be gone in two year. There's a dynamic of faddishness in all restaurant cultures.
Gold writes 800-1,000 CounterIntelligence column, an advice column called Ask Mr. Gold and 600-word First Bites, which is three a week. Some restaurants are as good as they're going to get when they first open. However, Gold thinks some places settle into their groove in six weeks to 2 months after opening.
Most people who want to break into writing are doing a blog, and they will get better with adult supervision, Gold says. The Weekly advertised for someone to cover restaurant gossip, and was inundated with resumes. They will end probably going with the person who is already blogging about it.
The Pulitzer has meant Gold gets phone calls returned quicker. He's not getting calls as much for some freelance work, because people think he's too busy. He's not.
Gold says he often doesn't remember faces but can remember soup eaten 15 years ago and whether it's garnished with parsley or chevril.
He looks for a throughline of narrative in a dish. Not many chefs can do that. Sometimes he's not sure what he thinks until he finishes the piece. He's more descriptive than thumbs up or thumbs down.
Gold has gone to some restaurants at many as 17 times. Taiwanese cuisine is different with stinky tofu that smells like a dumpster, plus bitter melon that's bitter like cancer medicine and soups that taste like someone put out a cigar in them. People were enjoying the dishes and he didn't bring the cultural values to the cuisine. He kept going back, never loved it but could explain it.
He likes to lead stories with the food, but it depends. He works for a weekly owned by misers but likes value cuisines so his expenses don't compare with being at Gourmet with a $10,000 budget.
As for anonymity, most chefs know who you are. Gold doesn't do television, but has been photographed. He has chefs he's friends with and his wife is former food editor. He is willing to lose friends to write the review he has to write, and he has. Back in the days where he thought no one knew who he was, but would run into chefs who could tell him chapter and verse when he had been in.
He writes longer pieces in spurts, but jams out shorter pieces. Gold quoted Annie Lamott in saying the secret of good writing is a shitty first draft. He knows his own work well enough to find some of his own weaknesses. You also have to earn the first person. Don't be too fancy. It would be nice if there were more words for salty.
You are always better served by looking at your copy afterwards and striking out two of three adverbs. If they'renot too fruity, analogies are your friends.
Friday, October 17, 2008
AASFE afternoon idea swap
The session on ideas for various yearly events were presented in a PowerPoint presentation. The section fronts will be on on the AFJ and the AASFE websites, which are linked to here. There was also a discussion of industry changes affecting features and food sections. Some editors are seeing their writers turning up in other areas in the paper, others see section front ads, others are wrapping comics around classified. Some are using more reader-generated content with some reluctance. But it's been successful as part of a zoning plan in Omaha. Someone asked about viability for pet obits. Silence. Many editors are seeing their writers writing for other sections, but others are looking and plug and play reporters, overlooking the fact that multimedia success is about an identifiable persona. Many editors are fighting the battle to keep local critics in our sections and to keep standalone sections. Weirdest idea: melding features and sports in one section.
Many ideas for cooperating were shared. All in all sobering but useful.
Many ideas for cooperating were shared. All in all sobering but useful.
Creating multimedia food content at AASFE
Addie Broyles deconstructed Twitter and how its microblogging capabilities resemble watercooler conversation or church chat. You can link your Tweets to your blog and there is some software that helps with that. Facebook also a good way to reach out to users. Giveaways also connect with users. Perhaps extend membership in AJ to bloggers (Editorial comment: assuming bloggers meet basic ethical standards). Broyles says she puts recipes from blogs in print. She is struggling with how to compensate bloggers fur using content. Don't think of them as competition, think of them as resources.
Jill Silva of the Kansas City Star talked about adding online slide shows and videos to augment print content. Demonstrated video on making marshmallows with flash photography interrupting events. They try to post videos weekly. They did a food stamp buying story with vlogs and photos. They also did a multimedia Thanksgiving package with web recipes, pro Q&As, podcasts, message boards and videos plus archives of past Thanksgiving stories.
Robin Davis of the Columbus Dispatch. The paper is family-owned. They melded other sections but left the food section to a standalone. They are only one left in Ohio and are down to four pages from eight. But they decided to cross brand and do a branded website, dispatchkitchen.com
Davis now does weekly television segments with the co-owned CBS affiliate. The station did not have a studio kitchen, but they built the Dispatch Kitchen in the North Market in Columbus (like the Farmer's Market in Los Angeles). They work with the Market on using the space. They usually tape on Wednesday mornings. The market offers cooking classes when the space is not in use.
The site has all of the print content but the recipe search is not functional due to the usual paradigm shifts. The video doesn't work on Macs, and is irregularly functional. Print ads are down, and consolidation is looming. They did three TV specials, including a holiday special that won its time slot. Online ads are on the increase.
Davis' face is associated with food in Columbus. She often gets recognized as lady on TV, lady on the Web and the lady in the newspapers. Ike affected Columbus with 300,000 without power for about a week. Readers were calling about food safety, and they did content on TV, in print and on the Web. The Red Cross asked her to present their food safety information because she was trusted and reliable. She is here and couldn't do it.
Broyles mentioned Google reader and RSS syndication (I'm not explaining them fully but go to wikipedia and all will be revealed). Davis says she hardly writes longer, award fodder pieces since she doesn't have time, spending 20 percent of her time on the TV side.
Jill Silva of the Kansas City Star talked about adding online slide shows and videos to augment print content. Demonstrated video on making marshmallows with flash photography interrupting events. They try to post videos weekly. They did a food stamp buying story with vlogs and photos. They also did a multimedia Thanksgiving package with web recipes, pro Q&As, podcasts, message boards and videos plus archives of past Thanksgiving stories.
Robin Davis of the Columbus Dispatch. The paper is family-owned. They melded other sections but left the food section to a standalone. They are only one left in Ohio and are down to four pages from eight. But they decided to cross brand and do a branded website, dispatchkitchen.com
Davis now does weekly television segments with the co-owned CBS affiliate. The station did not have a studio kitchen, but they built the Dispatch Kitchen in the North Market in Columbus (like the Farmer's Market in Los Angeles). They work with the Market on using the space. They usually tape on Wednesday mornings. The market offers cooking classes when the space is not in use.
The site has all of the print content but the recipe search is not functional due to the usual paradigm shifts. The video doesn't work on Macs, and is irregularly functional. Print ads are down, and consolidation is looming. They did three TV specials, including a holiday special that won its time slot. Online ads are on the increase.
Davis' face is associated with food in Columbus. She often gets recognized as lady on TV, lady on the Web and the lady in the newspapers. Ike affected Columbus with 300,000 without power for about a week. Readers were calling about food safety, and they did content on TV, in print and on the Web. The Red Cross asked her to present their food safety information because she was trusted and reliable. She is here and couldn't do it.
Broyles mentioned Google reader and RSS syndication (I'm not explaining them fully but go to wikipedia and all will be revealed). Davis says she hardly writes longer, award fodder pieces since she doesn't have time, spending 20 percent of her time on the TV side.
Integrating Food Coverage Throughout the Paper
The panel here featured Teresa Farney of the Colorado Springs Gazette, JoLene Krawczak of the Oregonian and former Atlanta Journal Constitution food editor Susan Puckett. Farney began by speaking about food news moving out of the food section. She collaborated with a metro reporter on a new ethnic grocery store where the other reporter conducted interviews in Spanish.
Susan Puckett said there was an expectation at the AJC of food stories moving out of the section as needed. She worked on a synergy with multimedia and the Web. She worked with online producers and became more nimble, resourceful and open-minded. The staff is now divided into print, online and newsgathering with writers producing stories across platform. Evening Edge aggregates content from dining channel, with quick fixes for busy people getting dinner on the table. A recipe database, which is searchable, is maintained by a staff member. Chefs do video "Dinner Dare" with video of them coming up with a quick dish. This evolved from a chef who became a "biscuit therapist," blogging in response to users' biscuit challenges. There was also a photo gallery, which did well.
Food never goes out of style and survives all economic situations.
Krawczak talked about extending the food brand beyond the paper. Food section moved from one floor down and now share a pod in the newsroom with the political team. The move increased cooperation and reducd poaching. Experiment was to develop a new mag from the food staff. Mix magazine was started by Martha Holmberg, former editor for Fine Cooking. Portland is an innovative food town. Staff did not increase. she has one-part time writer, two part-time editors and a part-timer in the test kitchen. Mag goes to nonsubscribers 30-45 young marrieds without children and singles, about 40,000 households. Publishes six times a year. Been successful. Have 2,000 subscribers, growing at about 200 per issue. Six thousands copies on newsstands. Goes for messy, funky look but sometimes it comes out more beautiful than planned.
Do restaurant trends. Other newsroom staffers want to write for the magazine. Has unified the newsroom. May repurpose reviews into capsules at the back of the book. Friday night dinner party reader throws casual dinner party and it's rewritten and published. It's the most popular feature in the magazine. Originally had to seed, but now people line up to do it. They use mostly staff photographers. There's a big freelance budget for Mix, and now share branding with the paper. Feature on Kitchens, which are a state of mind. Also includes a wine panel. Two other glossty magazines -- Northwest (do restaurant reviews) and Homes and Gardens Northwest (done by newspaper staff). Mix more about food and lifestyle.
Primary advertisers lto fo nontraditional food and drink ad, e.g. new condos, Macy's, wineries and restaurants have little ads.
The mags go to 40,000 people in in different target audiences, plus 5,000 on newsstands. Advertisers can do all three since they reach different audiences. Subscriptions are $10 for six issues $18 for 12 issues. Some readers complain if they know someone who gets it for free. The editor spends half her time on Mix, and is more efficient on the front end of the weekly section.
Mix has new website mixpdx. Ad ratio is 50-50 but she fights for 60-40 and it ends up somewhere in between.
Susan Puckett said there was an expectation at the AJC of food stories moving out of the section as needed. She worked on a synergy with multimedia and the Web. She worked with online producers and became more nimble, resourceful and open-minded. The staff is now divided into print, online and newsgathering with writers producing stories across platform. Evening Edge aggregates content from dining channel, with quick fixes for busy people getting dinner on the table. A recipe database, which is searchable, is maintained by a staff member. Chefs do video "Dinner Dare" with video of them coming up with a quick dish. This evolved from a chef who became a "biscuit therapist," blogging in response to users' biscuit challenges. There was also a photo gallery, which did well.
Food never goes out of style and survives all economic situations.
Krawczak talked about extending the food brand beyond the paper. Food section moved from one floor down and now share a pod in the newsroom with the political team. The move increased cooperation and reducd poaching. Experiment was to develop a new mag from the food staff. Mix magazine was started by Martha Holmberg, former editor for Fine Cooking. Portland is an innovative food town. Staff did not increase. she has one-part time writer, two part-time editors and a part-timer in the test kitchen. Mag goes to nonsubscribers 30-45 young marrieds without children and singles, about 40,000 households. Publishes six times a year. Been successful. Have 2,000 subscribers, growing at about 200 per issue. Six thousands copies on newsstands. Goes for messy, funky look but sometimes it comes out more beautiful than planned.
Do restaurant trends. Other newsroom staffers want to write for the magazine. Has unified the newsroom. May repurpose reviews into capsules at the back of the book. Friday night dinner party reader throws casual dinner party and it's rewritten and published. It's the most popular feature in the magazine. Originally had to seed, but now people line up to do it. They use mostly staff photographers. There's a big freelance budget for Mix, and now share branding with the paper. Feature on Kitchens, which are a state of mind. Also includes a wine panel. Two other glossty magazines -- Northwest (do restaurant reviews) and Homes and Gardens Northwest (done by newspaper staff). Mix more about food and lifestyle.
Primary advertisers lto fo nontraditional food and drink ad, e.g. new condos, Macy's, wineries and restaurants have little ads.
The mags go to 40,000 people in in different target audiences, plus 5,000 on newsstands. Advertisers can do all three since they reach different audiences. Subscriptions are $10 for six issues $18 for 12 issues. Some readers complain if they know someone who gets it for free. The editor spends half her time on Mix, and is more efficient on the front end of the weekly section.
Mix has new website mixpdx. Ad ratio is 50-50 but she fights for 60-40 and it ends up somewhere in between.
AASFE -AFJ joint session two
Rob King, formerly of the Philadelphia Tribune, now works for espn.com. He presented about job transitions, a subject close to my heart at this moment. He said to cherish these three things -- yourself, your audience (constituents not necessarily readers but friends, family and your social circle), and your promise (what and who you invest in).
He reminded us we were not powerless and showed a picture of the future Palin son-in-law. He also said we were in our new jobs. Your job is changing now and will keep changing. That's fine. Really.
Talk about work/life balancing. He added kids and life changed. Kids taught him about management and audience expectation.
It's not a career, it's a journey. It's going to work out, but you don't know how yet. He showed his list of jobs. He says writers stay open to opportunities, facts, rumors,
King related an anecdote about his son and a fire truck ride to school. The take home message; do anything to please the audience. The newspaper brand is a huge asset. Idiotic decisions are not new to this business.
He posted the ESPN motto and talked about some home examples of creating expectations.
Next move? Out of the comfort zone. Think about community. Remember the "third screen (PDA, Web-enabled phones)." You should try to delight and surprise.
For example, espn.com hired a physical therapist who wrote about injuries impact on fantasy sports. She just renegotiated a three year deal is on TV, radio blogs and elsewhere and generated 36 million page views one Monday.
ESPN has added sites in rugby, cricket and foreign language soccer sites.
Blogging sites for NFL teams using bloggers and local beat writers and also same approach to college conferences. They are told to refer out to sources of video and other content. Make users happy by making the information easy to access and communicate with them. Answer e-mail.
Metrics and market research are important. Page views in the millions, unique visitors same, for mobile product as well as online. Pay attention to this stuff.
With story sharing, focus on quality. You must trust your audience to make you better. Digital options are about sharing control. People want to use your content but want it fit into their lives. Think about duration. The stories don't end.
Use diversity of voices and points of view. Think about alternate delivery systems such as video etc. Think about context as much as content. Also add utilities such as games and timewasters (so to speak). People could do the Masters instead of just reading about it.
He reminded us we were not powerless and showed a picture of the future Palin son-in-law. He also said we were in our new jobs. Your job is changing now and will keep changing. That's fine. Really.
Talk about work/life balancing. He added kids and life changed. Kids taught him about management and audience expectation.
It's not a career, it's a journey. It's going to work out, but you don't know how yet. He showed his list of jobs. He says writers stay open to opportunities, facts, rumors,
King related an anecdote about his son and a fire truck ride to school. The take home message; do anything to please the audience. The newspaper brand is a huge asset. Idiotic decisions are not new to this business.
He posted the ESPN motto and talked about some home examples of creating expectations.
Next move? Out of the comfort zone. Think about community. Remember the "third screen (PDA, Web-enabled phones)." You should try to delight and surprise.
For example, espn.com hired a physical therapist who wrote about injuries impact on fantasy sports. She just renegotiated a three year deal is on TV, radio blogs and elsewhere and generated 36 million page views one Monday.
ESPN has added sites in rugby, cricket and foreign language soccer sites.
Blogging sites for NFL teams using bloggers and local beat writers and also same approach to college conferences. They are told to refer out to sources of video and other content. Make users happy by making the information easy to access and communicate with them. Answer e-mail.
Metrics and market research are important. Page views in the millions, unique visitors same, for mobile product as well as online. Pay attention to this stuff.
With story sharing, focus on quality. You must trust your audience to make you better. Digital options are about sharing control. People want to use your content but want it fit into their lives. Think about duration. The stories don't end.
Use diversity of voices and points of view. Think about alternate delivery systems such as video etc. Think about context as much as content. Also add utilities such as games and timewasters (so to speak). People could do the Masters instead of just reading about it.
AFJ pirates board feature and Sunday editors vessel
The AFJ membership were surprisingly talkative at 7 a.m. as they rode over to the ZaZa hotel in the Museum District to join up with the Association of Sunday and Feature Editors. Caffeine was essential. We introduced ourselves and then Matt Thompson from the Minneapolis Star Tribune talked about user generated content and how to incentivize contributions. Twitter, the microblogging platform, was also discussed, including how to use hash tags (example #afj08) to highlight events. He noted that Twitter has a narrative flow, and users do remixes (or mashups if you're really cutting edge).
Naturally, Power Point was involved. Thompson also notes that having user write captions or having users comment on a particular topic (best cocktail in the Cities, for example). He also talked about service features (best breakfast, downtown lunch) being wikied, that is, users updating and commenting continuously.
He then moved on to the topic of general features, grouped under a heading such as $1,000. 48 Hours. The Twin Cities. What do you do? Winner got $1,000 to enact the weekend. Specialty reporting takes the same approach to niche topics. He recommended wefeelfine.org, an aggregator of emotional states from blogs around the world.
Thompson also offered the idea of a best feature section, which would be the top blog in the area. His awards are taking place in the area of user generated content.
Michael Bauer from the San Francisco Chronicle talked about how that organization is using multimedia. Because they are in a JOA, the sfgate website had different standards for city and suburban restaurant reviews. Bauer worked out an agreement to standardize practices. Bauer blogs and has done so for about 2 1/2 years. he's garnering 150,000 page views a month. The blog made him less of an asshole in the public eye.
They do service, including video of 10 basic cooking techniques, oyster opening and cleaning squid. Also folding egg whites. Resources are not quite there, including a recipe database that could include 20,000 locally generated recipes. He sees newspapers as being able to combat the East Coast-centric quality of the national sites, and highlight the best of the region.
Bauer does a weekly newsletter which does repurpose some print content. Also added virtual tours of the Top 100 restaurant with a 360 degree view of the restaurant. To try to keep list current, removing closings and updating. As a result, tourists e-mail for recommendations. Also do tasting reviews in the Travel section of the site.
Holiday pages are big. They offer a Turkey Training Camp with video. The food and wine content draws 1.2 million page views a month.
When asked how to use print to drive traffic to the website, Thompson said Vitamin is printed weekly and offers meetups and other events to bond with the user community.
Naturally, Power Point was involved. Thompson also notes that having user write captions or having users comment on a particular topic (best cocktail in the Cities, for example). He also talked about service features (best breakfast, downtown lunch) being wikied, that is, users updating and commenting continuously.
He then moved on to the topic of general features, grouped under a heading such as $1,000. 48 Hours. The Twin Cities. What do you do? Winner got $1,000 to enact the weekend. Specialty reporting takes the same approach to niche topics. He recommended wefeelfine.org, an aggregator of emotional states from blogs around the world.
Thompson also offered the idea of a best feature section, which would be the top blog in the area. His awards are taking place in the area of user generated content.
Michael Bauer from the San Francisco Chronicle talked about how that organization is using multimedia. Because they are in a JOA, the sfgate website had different standards for city and suburban restaurant reviews. Bauer worked out an agreement to standardize practices. Bauer blogs and has done so for about 2 1/2 years. he's garnering 150,000 page views a month. The blog made him less of an asshole in the public eye.
They do service, including video of 10 basic cooking techniques, oyster opening and cleaning squid. Also folding egg whites. Resources are not quite there, including a recipe database that could include 20,000 locally generated recipes. He sees newspapers as being able to combat the East Coast-centric quality of the national sites, and highlight the best of the region.
Bauer does a weekly newsletter which does repurpose some print content. Also added virtual tours of the Top 100 restaurant with a 360 degree view of the restaurant. To try to keep list current, removing closings and updating. As a result, tourists e-mail for recommendations. Also do tasting reviews in the Travel section of the site.
Holiday pages are big. They offer a Turkey Training Camp with video. The food and wine content draws 1.2 million page views a month.
When asked how to use print to drive traffic to the website, Thompson said Vitamin is printed weekly and offers meetups and other events to bond with the user community.
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