Paging An Editor: Ruhlman On Bloggers

Michael Ruhlman linked to his Restaurant Hospitality article about bloggers, and a couple items caught my editorial eye. I mentioned them in the comments on his blog as well.

Writing of anonymity, he says, “This anonymity business has to stop. No anonymous slams. Bloggers and commenters on food forums ought to be immediately recognized as cowards and ignored.” Uh, think maybe he’s missing a word in that third sentence? As written, on its own, it suggests that all bloggers and food forum commenters are cowards. Any intelligent reader can figure out what he means, but a reader shouldn’t have to pause to do so.

Then he writes, “Andrea Strong, 38, who has been writing thestrongbuzz since 2003, has been regularly accused of praising the restaurants that comp her (typically by anonymous commenters). In a telephone interview she noted she does accept comps but said, ‘I would never write something negative because I wasn’t comped. I don’t expect to get comped. My goal is not to tell people where not to eat, it’s to tell people where to eat.’” The first sentence asks one question, but the second sentence answers another. Does she praise restaurants that comp her? Does she ever criticize them? We never learn. And the parenthetical’s placement makes it sound as if anonymous commenters comp her at the restaurants, not accuse her of taking comps.