A response to John Whiting on blogs

This is a somewhat belated response to John Whiting's summary of my talk to The Guild of Food Writers.  There is much of what he wrote that I disagree with.  I don't think blogs are about "feeling the width", quantity over quality or a mere passing phase of popular mania.  I fail to understand John's point that blogs are harder to search than other websites.  As site is limited by its navigability.

John also tries to draw a distinction between 'ordinary' websites and blogs, a distinction that I think is irrelevant.  There is very little difference as far as the average reader is concerned between the two.  I am willing to bet that if someone googled Paris bistros (John's speciality) and came across Whitings Writings and then did a similar search for kosher food in London and came across Silverbrow on Food, they wouldn't appreciate the difference between the two sites.  I also question whether they would care whether there is a difference between the two.  What people want is good information or comment that is well written.  I know that's what John provides and I hope I get somewhere close as well.

However, I do agree that for essays blogs are not the best medium.  But I would extend the argument, I think the internet is not the best medium for lengthy Elizabeth David style essays.  But more to the point, the beauty of the likes of David is her rarity, very few people write like her or have her knowledge or food.  It doesn't matter what the medium is, few people can reach her heights.  Whether I wrote on a more traditional website or some GFW members wrote on a blog, the quality of the writing simply is not comparable.

But, we should remember that John wrote his article primarily for the members of the GFW and it needs to be read in that context.  This is something that John makes clear in the comments to his post.  The GFW is for people who write about food professionally and those attending my talk were clearly interested in what the internet can do for them.  He may well have a point that blogs are not the best way for a writer to promote themselves.  Writing a blog is very different to writing for a newspaper or magazine, the obvious differences are the style and timeliness required for a blog.  But they do have their advantages.  Blogs require regular updating and therefore require the author to write frequently - never a bad thing.  Posts also tend to be relatively brief, thus giving a reader (or potential editor) an idea of the blogger's skills of self-editing and brevity.  Given that, I suppose I better stop now.

Comments

[Silverbrow]

BuzzMachine takes an interesting look at how the internet can assist old media, rather than hinder it. Might be something for food writers to bear in mind.

[John Whiting]

In answer to my casual comments on his GFW workshop, Anthony has given a more generous response than they deserved. As he says, they were written to a closed GFW newsgroup, a few of whom had attended. I sent a copy to Anthony because I thought my remarks might reach him by another route and I didn’t want to appear to be criticising him behind his back. (As I’ve already said, my comments were directed not at him but at the medium itself.)

To my surprise, Anthony asked if he could post my remarks on his own website. I consented, not because I thought they were worth such attention but because a refusal seemed petty. If I had set out to address a group of food bloggers, I would have done it differently; but having dived off this particular pier, I had better swim.

Anthony suggests that the internet is not the best medium for lengthy essays. Similar things were said half a millennium ago about another hot-off-the-press medium, movable type. My own experience of the web is of finding extraordinary authors that I might otherwise never have heard of.

John Thorne is considered by many to be the best food writer alive in America today. Several years ago, when I was chided for not knowing who he was, I checked out his website, www.outlawcook.com, and found page after page of some of the best food writing I had every encountered, together with cordial “hellos” from the likes of Julia Child, and all of it elegantly laid out in large type across the entire screen like the pages of a book. I was so delighted with the feel of it that when I had my own website set up, I asked that the format be similar. (Alas, two years ago John tore it all down and erected a new scaffolding which has remained almost empty. He tells me that he is now having a lot of trouble writing; considering how he has been neglected by the American foodie establishment, it’s no wonder.)

Anyone who has looked at my website knows that my longest essays run to over 5,000 words and have nothing to do with Paris bistros. Who am I gabbing away at? Without attempting to reach any particular audience, hits have yoyoed between a hundred and a thousand a day. People often come looking for something and start browsing; today someone spent over three-quarters of an hour reading through about 25 separate pages. I recently got an email from David Abel, a great Bay Area violinist with whom I had worked in the 60s. He began, “Have had a wonderful few hours reading the essays etc, and having a lot of feelings of how much has been lost.”

These are not people looking for the latest hot restaurant tip; they are people who like to read and write, often at considerable length. I’ve had exchanges with authors who, without the internet, would have existed for me only in the pages of a book. The fact that some of them have bothered to search out my email address on my home page suggests a more than casual interest.

The point of all this is that I feel very lucky to be part of an extended community for whom the message is not determined inexorably by the medium, but who continue to use words as they have always been used by those who care about them. False definitions, wrote Confucius, lead to the corruption of the state. Two and a half millennia later its still happening.

[Silverbrow]

My point about the internet not being a good medium for essays was slightly clumsily made. My point was that reading long essays on screen is difficult. Blog posts tend to be short, not essay length. But that doesn't stop you writing an essay on one if you so choose.

[John Whiting]

Difficulty is determined by familiarity. At the most obvious level, it's difficult to read books written in a foreign language. Then there are the mechanical barriers, such as reading front to back and right to left, scrolls versus binding, large format (broadsheet) versus small (pocket books). With familiarity, in a particular culture each of these becomes the norm.

Hand-held electronic books are now being tested and favorably responded to. My own accelerating experience of reading on-screen makes it more and more easy--even "normal". When reading a book, I now find it inconvenient that I can't immediately locate a passage just by doing a word search. Online indexes? Categorizing? Filing? A waste of time. I can just let files accumulate and do a Google Desktop search for whatever I want. I was worried that my in-box was getting our of control with over 8,000 postings--and then I read an article in Slate by a columnist who had double that figure and found it no inconvenience. If my hard-copy library, numbering several thousand volumes, were in that sort of disarray, I'd never be able to find anything.