Most newspapers have a food writer, or more usually, a writer who happens to write about food.
Some are good, some ordinary.
But who'd want to be a restaurant reviewer anyway? Hello, New South Wales Court of Appeals.
This is nothing new. Leo Schofield was sued well over twenty years ago for describing a lobster he was served as an 'albino walrus'. That case would surely be thrown out today, but it wasn't then and Fairfax had to put $100,000 in the tip jar.
Freedom of speech means being able to call a crap restaurant a crap restaurant. There's enough of them.
Some are good, some ordinary.
But who'd want to be a restaurant reviewer anyway? Hello, New South Wales Court of Appeals.
This is nothing new. Leo Schofield was sued well over twenty years ago for describing a lobster he was served as an 'albino walrus'. That case would surely be thrown out today, but it wasn't then and Fairfax had to put $100,000 in the tip jar.
Freedom of speech means being able to call a crap restaurant a crap restaurant. There's enough of them.
When I was putting the Las Colinas newspaper together just outside of Dallas, Texas, in 1991-2, my advertising role sent me in as a food critic. (It was a small operation.)
ReplyDeleteI raved about the food in a Mexican place, and it was good, but told people to overcome the setting (and that was a down and out strip mall). The owners screamed.
The paper owner and publisher quickly hired a stringer who wrote only in superlatives.
How ridiculous. If a restaurant is no good the owners should have worked to make it better, not gone after the reviewer. Idiots.
ReplyDeleteYes, a brave publisher helps, Janis. I think Fairfax will see it through.
ReplyDeleteImproving the restaurant might have been the harder option, Sara. Lawyers put dollar signs in peoples' eyes.