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Trib's food critic calls ChicagoNow blogger's gripe about fawning Rick Bayless coverage "racist" and starts a feud on the Tribune's on home page.
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LaReza? Next thing you know, my Italian-American friends will be taking issue with Richard Portillo's Italian sausage! (One of my favorite upscale, casual dining restaurants!)
How perfectly organic and not staged in any way.
Wow, things are getting crazy over on her latest post: http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/chicanisima/2009/08/its-too-easy-to-labe... Excellent quality of comments too. I see one from Chef Mendez of Carnivale for instance and the comments from non-industry folks are also very good and insightful.
Wake me up when we find out this is all a PR stunt.
Also. The new commenting rocks.
I think Teresa's point was that the media don't look for diverse faces, however, Bayless seems to have earned his reputation. I think it could have been written as a call enlarging the pool of Mexican cooking experts, rather than calling out the white guy.
Doubtful. Of course the only person that would be able to definitively deny it is Vettel. Since he wrote the first response to Puente, we'd need to know if that was wntirely self-directed or the clever idea of some editor who saw the potential for controversy.
so many racist trolls are commenting on her blog. moderation!
Do people just wake up angry and pissed off, looking for someone to rip into or do they have to work at it? It's sad when blog posting turns into a forum for the angry versus those who can contribute something with at least a little insight.
Haha. No, absolutely no contrivance. None. ;-)
Well, do the Tribune's food reporters and critics normally read and respond to local food blogs? I see some linking out from a few of the posts on the front page, so maybe.
Do you think Vittel would have devoted space in his column to this if Puente had published it in Gapers Block? A wordpress blog of her own?
Punte's points merit discussion, for sure. But let's remember this is a controversy between two folks on the Tribune's payroll.
Teresa Puente's comments were totally racist--no matter how tightly she wraps herself in the flag of La Raza. From one Hispanic (me--don't be fooled by my last name) to another, I just called her out for it on my own ChicagoNow blog:
http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/chicagosphere/2009/08/is-teresa-puentes-...
no offense Mike, but I'm with Whet on this one:
http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2009/08/14/you-must-chill-...
to call Puente racist completely misses the point of her argument.
I called her comments racist, not her. Although she is racist--because we all are. No more and no less. It's when you decide you're somehow "above" being racist that the most racist comments tend to flow. And that's what I think happened with Puente.
Well-played, Whet.
Hmmm, good point. Awww man, now I'm a little disapppinted :-(
Has Avenue Q taught us nothing folks?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbwNSNLPIfw
I personally prefer his citation of Chuck D:
And not to get all Village Elder about this (thanks, Phil Vettel, for the piquant phrase), but anyone here ever heard of colonialism? Read anything about rock and roll? Watched Spike Lee's masterpiece Bamboozled? Listened to Graceland, or Public Enemy?
"Elvis was a hero to most / But he never meant shit to me / He's straight up racist / That sucker was simple and plain / Motherfuck him and John Wayne"
I think what Chuck D means here is that white people adopting and selling aspects of minority culture is an age-old controversy, and even when it's thoughtfully done and ultimately encourages the crossing-over of worthy things, it's a cultural flashpoint for legitimate reasons, and if you're part of the dominant culture you have to remember that. If that means being more patient with dumb questions than you might otherwise be, tough shit.
HA! Mike, that's awesome and I completely agree. And it's also a great point you made that when people think they're (I hate this word) post-racial, that's when the problems start. The thing with racism is that I doubt we'll ever be rid of it entirely. As the Avenue Q puppets put it, not everyone's out there committing hate crimes. As much as we'd like it if racism or bigotry of any kind could truly be completely wiped out from everyone heart and mind, the most we can reasonably expect is that people won't act on bigoted feelings. Anything beyond that would require mass lobotomies, maybe including ourselves.
See, that doesn't have to be cast in a white/black paradigm. People with power and access to distribution are always stealing ideas from people who don't have power and access to distribution.
You can say the Rolling Stones stealing the blues is an instance of whites stealing from blacks, but it's no different from
-A major political party stealing ideas from an independent party. (look it up)
-Microsoft copying the interface of Kayak.com for it's new search engine. (look it up)
-Jim Carrey stealing his whole schtick from the guy who played Max Headrom (look it up)
That's just the way the world works. This guy liked Mexican food and was good at making it. Meanwhile, he saw an opportunity for someone with his connections and personal skills to "mainstream" it since the originators of the cuisine weren't getting it done. Life's tough.
So you're a racist, too? I kid, I kid...
I think some people just genuinely like to troll. There's no real consequence to it. So maybe they get banned from leaving comments. So what?
Her argument just makes no sense though, racist or not. How does what ethnicity you are have anything to do with what kind of food you're good at cooking? and how popular your food is? If she's pissed there's not enough "mexicans" making "mexican food" she should start cooking then!
She's just irked that the harsh reality of how things catch on. Having a great idea and great food isn't enough. It takes someone with business savvy, money, and connections to get it out there.
And now it's going to be a permanent thorn in her side. She's stuck her foot in her mouth whether she believes it or not and now when she needs a job or anything else, employers Google nowadays, so it'll be like "oh you're her? oh ok no thanks we don't need that attitude here"
I doubt it. Folks' memories are famously short in this town. How else would the mayor keep getting elected for instance? :-)
I dunno, man. I have a hard time seeing this as anything but positive for her. I mean, we're all talking about her. She scored tons of comments on her blog. Was mentioned in the trib. She has her defenders as you can see. She'll come out alright.
yeah you're probably right. this is a town where stupidity and corruption are rewarded.
I think it's just how the media and public life works. Being controversial works to an extent.
Anyone who manages to allude to "Avenue Q" in a comment thread gets points in my book.
My Indiana biz trip today reminded me of that State government's misguided racist dalliance just 90 years ago.
The Commish hit upon one of the reasons people resort to racism--the urgency to assert oneself in the face of forces beyond one's control. Destitute poverty led Germans to accept National Socialism. Cultural changes invited Hoosiers to elect those who rode masked by torchlight. Small business frustration may have contributed to the emotional outburst evidenced in this original posting.
My 2004 ballot accomplice--President Barack Obama--invites you all to become a part of a post-racial society where we may devote our energies to global peace, economic recovery & justice for all people.
Great point. It would be a great way to stir up publicity for their site. Last I checked, the Trib doesn't like to link to their own article archive, much less talk about other outlets.
But my first instinct was not that this was a PR stunt, but that it was a Trib staffer letting off some steam about ChicagoNow. Based on another incident involving a Trib staffer and ChicagoNow blogger of which I'm aware, the reporting staff might be none too happy about all these bloggers with their internet ways crashing the Tribune party. Heck, bloggers are often held up as a symbol of why newspapers are failing. Perhaps Vittel's frustration is just showing through?
With Tribune staff cuts bloggers may well surpass paid reporters coverage of investigative news stories.
That's another very interesting possibility.
After all, a pageview is a pageview is a pageview.
I suspect the people running the sports blogs over on Chicago Now will be pulling in more pageviews than the food critics over on ChicagoTribune.com before too long. If you're getting 40 comments on each of your posts about the latest Bears rumor, you're going to be pulling down more pageviews.
So if you've got a Bears blogger pulling down 4,000 pageviews per day, that person's making about $600/month and generating about 120,000 pageviews/month. If the Trib is able to get a $15 CPM off that, they could be making over $21,00 a year off that one blog minus the $7200 they pay the editor that year. So that's pretty good profit.
Meanwhile your food critic pulls in 3,000 pageviews per day, which means his work on the web is making $15,000. Let's say you're paying him a salary of $55,000 plus $30,000 in benefits. The math don't look good for the "pro."
Now, that food critic is also providing content for the print newspaper, where the margins are much higher, so he's creating more value there.
But how long before Chicago Now bloggers start popping up in the paper? Are they already?
Critics will decry the lower quality writing. The execs will say they're standing by their reporters etc.
But if the Tribune company can pay a guy $7200 a year to fill out a quarter of a sports page each day and pull in $20,000 in online revenue each year...wouldn't that be something they'd go after?
And if that's the case, expect more full-timers to transition over to part-timers or worse.
Update 1: That's a pretty high CPM I used in my math. Still, the amateur makes more $$$ for the company than the pro does, provided he's paid based on $5/CPM and is scoring thousands of pageviews.
Update 2: It's been interesting to see how aggressive they've been at promoting the new site. It actually makes a lot of sense. A pageview on Chicago now costs you $0.005 and could make you $0.015 provided a $15 CPM. Meanwhile a pageview on Chicago Tribune.com might also earn you $0.015, but if the writer's paid $50,000/year and pulling in 3000 PVs per day, that pageview may have just cost you $45 (!).
Consider that more than a few of the new bloggers have firsthand experience working in the field's they're now writing about. It's easy to get tips when your sources were all colleagues not too long ago.
It certainly makes no sense to have full time paid staff writing for web-only without gigantic page views and content you can actually sell ads on that people will click through on. I think sports lends itself well to this.
Going back to the Printed Blog concept, if I were the Trib I'd be looking at doing special sections or pages made up of "best of" from ChicagoNow in the print edition. They'd probably pay a piece rate or word rate for that, lower again than for full time staff. Again, a comparative bargain.
Really like that math, btw.
Maybe they don't pay at all for it to appear in print? I know there are some Chicago Now folks posting here. Mike, does your CN contract say anything about print rights and syndication?
Throwing this link in here just for reference: Esther Cepeda's examination of this exact issue almost exactly a year ago.
good find.
Bayless has a great response to the haters in this piece. On why his perspective can lead to more authentic cuisine:
nice catch
Verdicts on the new Hot Topics box? It was pointed out that stuff dies pretty hard and fast on the Citizen. I thought this would be worth a try.
I dig it. It certainly made it easier for me to find this thread and add that link. :)
I dig it too. Though it's a little ChicagoNow heavy ;)
No kidding. I've noticed that half of these sites used to be their own distinct spots. Now they're all notches on the Trib's belt. Ok. Whatever. Hope it's worth the $5.
That said. This is a good feature. You need to keep finding ways to help us find good stuff here on the site. I don't have any ideas in that department, but I'll let you know when you screw up. That's just the kind of guy I am.
I'm a big fan. Maybe expand it to five? Our "Hot Topics" are programmable and aggregate multiple posts, so that might be another tweak you could make.
I'm following WC everyday, so it's already very useful and well-designed. Nice work, Brad. Please keep it up.