A recent article on CNN.com has come at a poignant time.
Once upon a time, there was a blogger in the coffee blogosphere who actually had journalism chops and actually took the time to pen a series of post critical of the events that happened within our niche of the coffee industry.
Sadly, that time has passed and that person decided that all the bullshit directed his way for offering a critical view on the industry just wasn't worth it. Afterall, it's not his life and he wasn't being paid to do it.
Meanwhile, the coffee industry is inundated with non-reporting, fanboys, masquerading advertising, non-starters or mindless love-fests.
For quite some time, I've lobbied Sarah Allen, editor-in-chief of the international industry publication Barista Magazine to take a harder look at our industry, only to be reminded that in-depth scrutiny of our industry is outside of their scope and more suited to other publications.
Suddenly, and without introduction or explanation, the writers at sprudge.com - the industry's leading news satire website, has just published what looks to be the most critical piece of journalism to hit our industry.
Cheers to the Sprudge.com editors and writers. And here's to hoping that we see more critical journalism on the webpages of Sprudge in the near future - because there's no shortage of material out there...
Ouch! I do agree, though; too often, a lot of what is reported within the industry seems imbalanced or just ill-informed... I'm looking in the mirror on this one, as many of my own perceptions fly tend to smack of both.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the wake-up call.
Who would ever think a satire website could provide a solid piece of journalism. Go figure.
ReplyDeletenot sure how i didn't see this until now, jay. you're always a bit too kind to me.
ReplyDeletesuffice to say i get nostalgia too for some of those old crapstorms. without exception, though, they were all totally accidental (e.g. i was writing as a fanboy with a narrow experience, then was typically stunned by an outsized response).
i'm still more than willing to write critically. nothing in the coffee world has dissuaded me. but life does tend to get in the way, and i guess my thoughts now are less centered on specific people and events and more on issues and movements.
thus, the overly philosophical posts on "le fooding" and other things i manage to spit out every now and then.
agreed that this colombia reporting was scintillating stuff. alas, i never saw it until now, because i simply don't have an interest in the cheesy insider puns in which the site tends to specialize.