This Observer food blog post has been generating a bit of heat of late up here in one of the regions. Which, when you read the headline and subhead I’ve reproduced above seems fair enough. What a fool. However, the post itself is actually pretty good. The author admits to her failings in knowing about Birmingham cuisine and asks the readers to share and inform. Which, after a bit of heat generation, they do resulting in a nice and comprehensive guide to some of the better eateries in the city.
Lessons:
- Don’t let sub-editors write your headlines or standfirsts of whatever they’re called for your blog posts. Readers will assume you wrote it.
- Early commenters have a tendency to skim the first paragraph and comment with their prejudices intact. I know I’ve been guilty of doing this in the past.
- As are bloggers, especially those who read kneejerk reactions (no offence Paul) and reblog them without reading the original piece properly.
- Some Brummies are really twitchy about criticisms of the city.
- The Observer food blog is a rather useful place to find out about the more obscure corners of a city’s cuisine.
Hi Pete,
No offence taken, but…;-)
Yes, the headline is poor. But I still stand by my criticism about the piece. Either as a writer, a news editor or editor, I would not have been happy to run a piece with that opening paragraph and then compound the mistake by continuing to fail to tell the story. It didn’t take too much surfing to find out a few more details about Delice, its origins, its aims etc. As a result, the story is quite different to the one being portrayed – which is what some of the comments on the original blog are alluding to, I feel. I’m annoyed by the lazy journalism more than the Brum bashing.
Having said that I can be twitchy about such things. But I regard myself as incredibly well-balanced, as a Welshman living in the Midlands I have a chip on both shoulders regarding London-centric media reporting.
Spot on Pete. I was lamenting the lack of Middle Eastern restaurants in Brum (after having eaten in some in Cyprus over Christmas) and now from the comments in the Observer post I now know of at least two. It also served as a reminder that I need to pay a visit to the Ladypool road for the first time in years having now exhausted all the curry places in Cotteridge and surrounding areas.
My question for Brum foodies is how come Eastside is so lacking in Restaurant venues? Surely there’s enough of a night-time economy to warrant one?
Dave
Hey chaps, I see you’ve picked up our Brum thang. It did spark a bit of aggro – I agree with Pete in that that’s mostly due to the head and standf, although, Paul, you’re right – with a bit more research we could have had a different piece written – tbh, I commissioned this purely to start a debate about food in the regions and I was interested in getting the readers to tell us more than we were telling them. But I’d rather have people from those regions write stuff for me so there’s more of an exchange of info going on – so Pete – or any other bloggers out there – if you have an idea for a post you’d like to write, give me a shout: susan.smillie@observer.co.uk.
Cheers