Ethics

It’s Official: Readers Don’t Like Sponsored Posts

September 23, 2014 by diannejacob 86 Comments

Are readers of online content comfortable with sponsored posts? According to a new study, no. Most are confused and feel deceived.

Sponsored posts, for those not in the know, is also known as advertorial or native advertising. In our field, it means a company has paid (in cash or in kind) a blogger or website writer to write an endorsement. It must be disclosed as such, according to the FTC.

I first questioned writing content in exchange for pay or [Read more…] about It’s Official: Readers Don’t Like Sponsored Posts

7 Outrageous Requests of a Food Blogger

May 27, 2014 by diannejacob 94 Comments

A well-known food blogger loves to forward outrageous requests from food companies to me. I’ve kept them them in a file, until now, when I got her permission to share them.

As you know from the countless emails you delete, food companies want product coverage from bloggers. Nothing wrong with that, of course. It’s just the way [Read more…] about 7 Outrageous Requests of a Food Blogger

Bloggers Behaving Badly

April 22, 2014 by diannejacob 94 Comments

At a recent conference, I persuaded an executive to give me some dirt about working with food bloggers, as long as he could do so anonymously.

He’s been in the food business for 30 years, working for large food manufacturers, a worldwide commodity board, and a dried fruit company. Now he’s a consultant to six food companies, supplying post-ready recipes to bloggers, and inviting them on tours and to attend trade shows as media.

He might take 80 bloggers on a four-day tour on behalf of a company or board, for example. In addition to their expenses, he pays bloggers [Read more…] about Bloggers Behaving Badly

Do Content Aggregators Take Advantage of Food Bloggers?

March 25, 2014 by diannejacob 37 Comments

A guest post by Sally Cameron

Food Blogger Sally Cameron, proprietor of A Food-Centric Life, questions who benefits from her content appearing on other sites.

I log in to the admin page of my site and there they are: the pingbacks. These are links to websites that use my content and recipes, usually without permission.

One type is from newbie bloggers who do not understand the courtesy of crediting my site. I inform them politely. Usually they are apologetic and add a link and credit.

But lately I’m getting pingbacks from the other kind: content aggregators. These are big groups, big sites, with tens to hundreds of thousand of followers. They take my content for free, for their own benefit, sometimes without notifying me and without asking for permission.

They may not take the full post. Maybe it is my photo and a list of the recipe ingredients, with links back to my site for the recipe directions. Here are my [Read more…] about Do Content Aggregators Take Advantage of Food Bloggers?

How to Write Recipes That Are Harder to Steal

March 18, 2014 by diannejacob 52 Comments

I’ve written many times about how individual recipes can’t be copyrighted here in the US. But did you realize that you can defend a copyright if parts of your recipe contain “substantial literary expression?”

What exactly is that, and why should you bother?

“Substantial literary expression” establishes the information in a recipe as yours. That could be just as important as copyright, when it comes to theft.

Let me explain. US copyright law defines substantial literary expression as: [Read more…] about How to Write Recipes That Are Harder to Steal

Male Food Writers Promoting Male Chefs

November 19, 2013 by diannejacob 54 Comments

If you’ve read the news on who’s a top US chef, they are all men, according to a male food editor and a male restaurant critic.

Two features stirred the wrath of many: a cover story on “The Gods of Food” in Time magazine; and a list of Rising Stars from the San Francisco Chronicle.

Eater interviewed the Time magazine food editor about why female chefs did not appear, and here is his reply:

“We discussed that for a while, we actually thought about it. We wanted to name a couple. Another reality: none of them have a restaurant that we believe matches the breadth and size and basically empire of some of these men that we picked. They have the reputation and all that and it’s an unfortunate thing. The female chef is a relatively recent phenomenon, except for Alice who has been around for a long time. None of them have the recent breadth that these guys have.”

Chronicle restaurant critic Michael Bauer offered this defense of his choices in a follow-up piece (in 2011, the first time he chose only male chefs — and this is his 4th year running), saying [Read more…] about Male Food Writers Promoting Male Chefs