Alan over at A Good Beer Blog has a post today entitled More On That Code Of Conduct Idea, itself prompted by something written by Andy Crouch at his Beer Scribe website, called Media Draft: Anheuser Busch, Paid Travel, and the Ethics of Beer Writers…. Start with Andy’s thoughts and then read what Alan responded with before launching into what’s below here. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
This is clearly an issue that’s not going away. Not everybody seems able to agree on what is acceptable behavior for a beer writer and as with most things involving morals and ethics, there really aren’t any hard and fast rules that can be applied to every situation. There can be guiding principles, of course, but they have to conform to the day to day working realities, otherwise they’re meaningless. Ethics is defined, according to my OED, as “the moral principles governing or influencing conduct.”
To me this debate is important because I had an idea last year to start up another Beer Writers Guild to replace the North American Guild of Beer Writers. This time around, I felt the right way to do it was to have a guild that was by writers, for writers, so I enlisted as founding members the help of five colleagues to get us off the ground: Stephen Beaumont, Lew Bryson, Stan Hieronymus, Lisa Morrison and Lucy Saunders. The idea was to set things up and then invite all of our fellow writers to join us. We’re all pretty busy, of course, and things have been moving forward, but at a snail’s pace due, at least in part, to my own lack of spare time to work on the project.
One of the things I noticed early on, talking amongst the six of us (and other writers as well) was that it is very difficult to agree on what rules of conduct should be set out for the group. Some wanted almost no rules, others some loose standards and I suspect from talking with Andy more generally about this in Germany that he would lean toward having some very rigid rules, possibly involving a prohibition or disclosure of any received from a brewery or beer company. The way he explained his position to me in Bavaria has softened somewhat in his recent blog post, but I still felt the same frustration when I read “[a]re you absolutely convinced the person wasn’t influenced by the free plane ride, shuttles, hotel room, day trips, beer, meals, and other activities?” (Full Disclosure: we had this conversation at an Anheuser-Busch beer dinner during an all-expense paid trip to Bavaria sponsored by the Bavarian Brewers Federation, an Agricultural Trade organization whose exact name now escapes me, and others.) I tried to persuade Andy then that his position was too rigid and unrealistic given that beer writing doesn’t really make anyone a comfortable living all by itself, but I don’t think I got very far.
In Andy’s post he quotes Ray Daniels from his own disclosure of paid travel, suggesting that if anyone had a problem with that, they didn’t really understand the reality of writing about beer for a living, as follows. “If you think that beer writing pays enough for anyone to bring you this kind of information without brewer support then your perception of the beer world is twisted like some M.C. Escher block print. Either that or Mad Cow disease has finally become manifest in America. In either case, you need to have a beer, read the piece and then decide for yourself what you actually think. Jumps to conclusion, knee jerk reactions and other un-pondered perspectives need not apply.” Amen, brother, and I credit Andy for sharing that perspective, too.
But as Ray so cogently points out, beer writing doesn’t pay the bills, for most of us it’s a labor of love. No one I know actually makes a living writing “only” about beer. Even ones that come close, Beaumont for example, also write about travel, food and spirits (and he also has a restaurant). Michael Jackson (who we know accepted travel and such) also wrote about whisky, and in fact was better known for that in his native England. It’s simply too narrow a topic to sustain a cadre of writers all by itself. So that means it’s utterly impossible for anyone to live up to a standard where no one ever accepts anything and also can make a living. To me, it’s academic ivory tower thinking that ignores reality. It may look good on paper or as a theory, but out in the trenches it just doesn’t work.
And I can’t help but think that trying to discredit everyone who does accept freebies does no one any favors, either? If everybody does from time to time accept a press junket or a free beer dinner, who then is left above the fray? I hate to suggest that something is acceptable just because everybody is doing it, but perhaps everybody’s doing it because it already is acceptable? Under such circumstances, to not ever accept would put a writer at a disadvantage in terms of stories he or she has access to. No one has ever insisted what I write about, only that I am encouraged to write about the experience.
At what point do we draw the line? Most would agree receiving samples to review is acceptable. But what about a case? And what about press credentials for attending events? I just got back from the Craft Brewers Conference in San Diego. As a member of the press, I could attend any number of seminars that brewers had to pay for, and I’m pretty sure they weren’t cheap. Should I have had to pay my way to every event, to avoid the appearance of bias or being compromised in my opinion? As media credentials are also a time-honored tradition for getting news coverage, should they likewise be thrown out, too, since they might bias the journalist? My point simply is where does it end? Where do you draw the line between the legitimate and the unethical? And who gets to decide? Has getting into movies before they’re released for free made movie reviewers unable to pan a horrible flick? When I was a record buyer for the now defunct Record Bar chain, headquartered in North Carolina, a record label flew me to Chicago for the weekend to see a new band whose record they wanted me to buy. The band sucked and so did the record. They wanted end caps; I think I put in one record per high volume store. Was I influenced by the fact that they flew me to the windy city? Not one iota. I had a job to do, which was to make the best buying decision based on how many I believed the chain of record stores I worked for could sell. That’s no different from being a professional journalist. I believe I can separate the job from the perks. I’m an adult. That’s what the job requires. If I muck it up enough times, saying something bad is good, my readers will stop paying any attention to me. If I’m continually out of step with popular opinion, I’ll stop getting writing assignments.
So what to do? My wife, who’s an attorney like Andy Crouch, picks up the tab for me and my two children. In exchange, I take care of the kids and do stuff around the house, which is where I work from. In my writing, I personally don’t ask for anything beyond a sample I may need. I pay my own way almost all of the time, and on my taxes show a loss every year with more expenses than income from beer writing, primarily because of the high cost of air travel. I hope that will improve and change, but for now that’s the way it is. If someone offers me a sample, a t-shirt or yet another keychain, I will often graciously accept. If someone invites me on a trip or to a dinner, etc., if I’m available I will also generally accept. I take the position that I won’t ask for something, but if offered I will usually accept, provided there are no obvious expectations created that I find personally troubling. To hear Crouch talk about it, I may as well not bother writing about it because apparently I’ve sold my soul to the devil of bias, especially if I don’t follow his requirement that all disclosures must be in full and up front. Perhaps every beer writer should just start every article they write with a standard boilerplate disclosure, that will sure make for some entertaining copy guaranteed to really draw in the reader. I know in his blog post, Andy’s just raising the question and saying it’s something to be aware of and watch out for, but since I already know where he falls on the debate and what even raising it says, I think we can move past that to what he’s really suggesting, which is that he strongly dislikes the practice and appears suspect of anyone not walking the road as elevated as his own.
But unless you’re independently wealthy, why say no? Why create an ethical standard that only the wealthy can adhere to, especially when no one else is terribly concerned about it? According to Lew Bryson, Crouch told him “if you can’t afford to write about beer, you should do something else.” The full quote, from a comment posted on the Appellation Beer Blog is as follows.
I think I’ve been pretty clear that I acknowledge not having to make this entire leap due to an outside, full time job. And I’ve acknowledged that said full-time job allows me the fiscal freedom to follow a certain set of guidelines that I have described here and elsewhere. To those who say they cannot make a full-time living without crossing some ethical lines, I’m sorry to say, you should not be writing full time. Just as a lawyer (to take my trade) who cannot fiscally operate a solo practice without breaching a few conflict of interest rules should get a different job (either with a larger firm, a non-profit, or out of the legal trade). I think it’s better practice to write part-time and get a second or different job rather than cross certain standardized ethical guidelines in order to make an extra few bucks.
As Andy himself admits, his law practice far outweighs his beer writing in terms of income. Knowing that, how can that statement not be taken as class politics? Here’s what’s wrong with what he’s saying, at least in my opinion. Crouch suggests that a lawyer who can’t make a living, shouldn’t be a lawyer. I’m okay with that statement, since there are numerous examples of lawyers able to make a comfortable living. There are many, many people and organizations willing to pay substantial sums for legal services. Can the same be said for writing about beer? Of course not, and for that simple reason I don’t think you can compare the two. The occupational opportunities are vast indeed, especially when set side by side with that of beer writing. Even with the in roads made over the past few decades, the profession of beer writer is a struggling one with no clear career path, specific schools or recruiters waiting to snap one up. There is nobody that’s making a living writing full time only about beer. Give me one name of someone, anyone, who makes a living, decent or otherwise, ONLY writing about beer, with either no additional topics or a second or day job? Stumped? Me, too. That’s because there aren’t any. Even if you could find one, somewhere, that still suggests it’s a very difficult thing to achieve, impossible or nearly so. Beer writing simply is not a well-paid job. No one’s clamoring to get into the field as their ticket to fame and fortune. And quite frankly, this inflexible prohibition on accepting things would also deal one more blow to people writing about beer. It would make it much harder for new writers to enter the field or for part time writers to be able to compete with the more established among us. And that, I believe, would be bad for not only the writing community, but for the industry itself. There’s room for many more voices to talk about better beer. We should be making it easier for beer writers, not more difficult.
I really don’t want to sound insulting (and Andy I’m really not trying to be) but it seems easy to take such a black and white position with regard to accepting free trips and the like, when you already have a decent income that allows you to afford to pay your own way, and I acknowledge that you’ve said so. But it just feels a little like class superiority. I really don’t think that’s your intention, but I can’t help but hear this voice in the back of my head every time this argument comes up, saying “why don’t those commoners know their place, this profession is for reserved for those of breeding.” When you try to impose your ethics on the rest of us, suggesting no one can accept something of value as a part of doing their job, despite your acknowledgment that it’s a time-honored tradition (albeit one you disagree with), it’s like you think you get to decide who can actually DO that job by making rules very few people can afford to live up to, and I don’t think that’s realistic or, quite honestly, very fair. When you say writing about beer can only be done by those that can afford it, pip pip, you need to be wearing a monocle and top hat. The poor need not apply. That just fries my lower middle-class upbringing into a frenzy.
Andy, I think I can speak for the six of us in saying we hope you’ll be a part of the new Beer Writers Guild (once we get our shit together) but I can guarantee you that our code of conduct will not include a prohibition on accepting travel or other items of value, nor will we require a specific type of disclosure for any article we write. I believe that has to be a decision made by each individual writer. Perhaps you’ll think that will make our fledgling group a nonstarter from the get go, but I would argue that there are more important issues to tackle than a practice as common as the press junket, such as raising the quality of writing and getting us all better pay, more work and contracts that are more fair. That will go a long way toward creating an environment where beer writers could actually make a decent living. As Lew puts it, “give me fair pay for my work, and let the readers be a bit more demanding, and you’ll GET quality writing, and ethical writing.”
By Andy’s standards there would be no industry writers. Do car writers own all the cars they review or are they allowed special access by the car companies? Do movie critics pay for the tickets for all the movies or are they allowed to attend special free screenings? I know PC Game reviewers get free advance copies of the game. Are all these industry writers compromised devils trying to sell our souls to the evil corporations? I think not. Why? Because the majority of them (you, Lew, Andy, Lucy, etc) are like us (Me and everyone else who reads your blog everyday), enthusiasts, lovers, and Don Juans (okay maybe not that) of beer. I try to taste every new beer that comes my way, but there are times where’d I’d like to save my 7 dollars from going to a beer I’d soon discover I hate and spend it on something I might like. That’s where beer writers come in, you guys sift through the junk and diamonds to help the rest of us out. I may not always agree with your tastes, and your words are not gospel, but they help. Now the only way you would ever be able to tell me enough about all these beers is with a little help from the people who make them to make sure you have access. Could that access corrupt you? Sure, but guess what, we (the readers) aren’t dumb. If someone starts writing that every product from a certain brewer is wonderful and without fault, we’ll smell the rat. It’d be nice if writers disclosed where they got the product, access, trips, because it adds to transparency, which adds to trust. The only other way is to accept nothing, not even a free pint at local pub, as free could make you feel more positive about the beer. In fact you probably shouldn’t be friends with any brewers either, as we all know relationships can influence. If that sounds ridiculous, then good, because it should. We’re all adults here, all we readers want is our writers to be honest, not rich saints…(though we wouldn’t begrudge you if you did)
Ethics is a question that must always be asked and answered. As your wife, the attorney, can tell you, one can get bogged down in semantics. For, if you debate Truth, as an attorney, arguendo, by time you finally finish the debate on what the letter T means, you have then lost all grasp of the original pursuit.
Drink, blink, chug and go, your reviews will reveal your integrity. For those who really seek truth are never willfully blind.
Stand up and Fight for your American way of Life
or
LET IT GO!
Hi Jay-
There’s a lot here and I’ll need some time to digest it all before properly responding (and it’s just too nice outside today to spend any time on the computer). But I thought I’d offer a few initial thoughts. I think the issues raised here and in numerous other blog posts (I am beginning to agree with Stonch over at Alan’s site that the discussion is growing pretty old, especially with little action to show for it) are quite diverse and required examination in each of their own rights. We have a number of ethical questions to debate and answer as journalists, ranging from the acceptance of samples, free meals, and press credentials, to free travel, to doing outside consulting/writing/or other work directly for a brewery, importer, or distributor, along with a host of others. I think all I’ve called for, despite some arguing here and there, is for the discussion to happen. I’ve certainly been accused of being too rigid both here and elsewhere and I’m not entirely sure that is a fair assessment as I’m mostly calling for the debate. I have my views and they are nuanced (I wouldn’t call them black and white). My focus so far has been on the bigger picture issues that really only affect a small number of beer writers, perhaps three dozen total, if that. Far from class conflict, that itself is an issue of social if not class stratification. Average working folks don’t have the time to take a week off of work, unpaid, to travel Europe or any other place. So let’s not get too rose colored political/economic glass on the topic. If it really was a money issue, the decision to go on one of these trips cannot realistically be justified from a financial perspective. To my knowledge, not a single writer went on the Europe trip with a story assignment in hand. Some may have been able to return and write about it in the papers/websites they write for, but in reality, going on the trips is a serious opportunity cost for a day to day operating freelance writer. If you, or Lew, or any other such full-time writer is really concerned about financial issues, you know you would certainly make a lot more money if you stayed at home and wrote instead of dawdling around Europe for a week or ten days.
I’m pretty sure you’re aware of the straw man you’re setting up with respect to this class argument. I’d also suggest you took the comment about who should be writing when things don’t pay well pretty well out of context. Without belaboring the point, my statement is simply this, if you cannot make a full-time living as a beer writer without bending certain ethical rules, then perhaps it would be better to practice the trade in a part-time fashion, backed up by a different, better paying job. That doesn’t mean that poor people shouldn’t write about beer (which, if that was your point, was pretty insulting, especially when directed towards someone whose law practice is entirely focused on defending indigent people). As I’ve said elsewhere, we could all make a lot more money if we simply let PR reps write our copy. I don’t think any of us thinks that is a good idea.
And let’s also not oversell the importance of trips in terms of doing our jobs as writers. Sure, it’s good to learn about places we might not otherwise know, but a trip to a handful of small breweries in Europe is hardly make or break in terms of our overall reporting. People do it not for business reasons or journalistic information seeking reasons but because they are fun. When viewed in that light, I think the importance of the trips and the justification for attending them wanes considerably.
And in terms of nuance, and in demonstration of my lack of a black and white perspective here, I think there are differences to be considered between certain types of trips (especially in light of who sponsors them). My efforts over the last few weeks, months, and years (insufferable as they may appear to some) have been focused on creating some thought, debate, and hopefully action on a topic that has too long (in my mind and others I have personally discussed the issue with) lay dormant.
As I’ve said, there are dozens of issues that people writing about beer should be thinking about on an individual basis. And those people will inevitably have very different views about what is proper. For me personally, I have little interest in the free samples, free meals, and even free festival or media credentials issues. Why is that? Because I think there are some much bigger picture issues (starting with free trips and going forward into writers who have a direct financial relationship, almost always undisclosed, with the brewers, importers, distributors, and restaurateurs that they write about) that I think should be discussed. I think these situations are rife with conflict and that readers deserve to know about them. I don’t think that is a particularly radical view, others probably do (especially those who supplement their writing income that way). I keep saying it and I mean it, I think it would be valuable to debate these issues in a professional forum for those of us who engage in the trade on a regular basis. Just because I may disagree with some views, I may be persuaded by others. I’m not looking for an organizational yes man Jay, just the debate.
Best,
Andy Crouch
Andy,
I don’t blame you for staying outside. It’s beautiful here, too, and I’m doing the same. I’m certainly ready to let the issue drop, too. In fact, I hate that it keeps coming up. I think it’s already well settled that press junkets, free dinners, etc. are all a part of the symbiotic relationship of journalists to the people they write about or the sector they cover. They certainly are in every other part of the newsroom, so I don’t think there should be separate rules for beer writing. As far as I can tell, you may be the only one who’s bringing up this issue. And I think readers already know that the press get access and freebies that they don’t. It’s what allows us to bring that experience to them to read about. Do you honestly believe our readers don’t know the way the world works?
If I took your class statements out of context or misinterpreted what you meant, I do apologize for that. Having grown up poor in an affluent community, I’m very sensitive to class issues and tend to be pretty thin-skinned about them.
To me, the value of the Bavaria trip was not about an individual article, or two or three, but about the educational value it will add to my overall knowledge of what I’m writing about at some point in the future. I suspect all of us have been on countless, seemingly endless, brewery tours. Yet I usually take something new away from each one, and each can be interesting or rewarding in unusual, not immediately obvious ways. The longer I’m in the beer business in some fashion (which is going on 16 years – plus being an advocate since the late 70s) the more I see how my cumulative experience makes me a better, more informed writer as the years tick by. Even going to a dormant hop field in the dead of winter had its hidden charms. When will it come up? It already has in one or two things I’ve written, but indirectly. So the trip helped inform me in ways perhaps our hosts didn’t expect or which benefited them, but knowledge is knowledge. And I for one will try and learn anywhere and everywhere I can. If it’s fun, so much the better. But the fun is ephemeral. What I saw and experienced stays with me far longer.
The conflicts of interest and whether of not readers deserve to know about them is much broader then beer; it’s happening right now in every single sector of our society. I’m much more worried that a General who painted rosy pictures of how the war was going while on the Pentagon payroll than whether or not Lew got a free trip to St. Louis courtesy of A-B. I know that doesn’t necessarily make it alright, but in perspective, the practices that you believe need a professional forum are almost all universally accepted practices for professional journalists in every corner of the world, from food writers, film reviewers, sports reporting to being embedded in Iraq. Once beer writing is a legitimate position and every newspaper, general news magazine and think tank has one, then that debate might make more sense, but until then I’d rather work on the other issues keeping beer off the table of the mainstream media, so to speak.
Best,
J
P.S. – I’m sorry we missed you at Augustiner in Salzburg. The train got Peter and I there about a half hour passed the rendezvous time and we, too, found out they weren’t open for lunch. We didn’t know how to contact you, so we waited a short while, then headed out to Trumer.
“This is clearly an issue that’s not going away”
Oh please don’t say that. It bores me to tears, and I’d bet I’m not the only one. This discussion has rendered some of my favourite beer blogs unreadable recently.
Let’s discuss something more interesting. Let’s see… I know. How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
Stonch, I’m with you.
When so many people distrust the media for a lack of full disclosure in reporting, why not add a footnote about sponsorships, etc. There’s a graceful way to say when one is a guest of a tour, party, tasting, etc. It’s a note of thanks included in a byline or author bio. The host is acknowledged and the reader can judge the content for her/himself.
Dammit…I told myself I wouldn’t get into this any more, I told my wife I wouldn’t, I even told Stonch…but I gotta.
Andy sez: “Average working folks don’t have the time to take a week off of work, unpaid, to travel Europe or any other place. …If it really was a money issue, the decision to go on one of these trips cannot realistically be justified from a financial perspective. To my knowledge, not a single writer went on the Europe trip with a story assignment in hand. …going on the trips is a serious opportunity cost for a day to day operating freelance writer. If you, or Lew, or any other such full-time writer is really concerned about financial issues, you know you would certainly make a lot more money if you stayed at home and wrote instead of dawdling around Europe for a week or ten days.”
Which leads me to believe that you really don’t get this whole gig. You CANNOT do this all by telephone. I just laid out some serious coin for a trip to Germany and Belgium, and another one last year, and I want to get a trip to Ireland in yet this year. All out of pocket. I’ve covered half the cost of the Germany/Belgium trip already, and when the checks come in for four other stories, I’ll have it paid for. The Ireland story will pay for itself even more quickly. Last year’s trip…will probably never be covered, but it was necessary, and really set up this year’s trip. I DO justify these trips I pay for myself financially…or else I don’t go.
I’m not taking a week off of work: I AM working, and I don’t just mean the laptop hours on the plane or in the hotel room before breakfast. Stories don’t come from nothing: you need material to write. If you can’t get huge amounts of story material from walking the streets of a city with a totally different beer culture from the one you’re used to; from eating what the people there really eat with the beer, not what you’ve been told they eat; from seeing how people drink beer, order beer, think about beer, and react to what you ask them about beer; if you can’t get enough material to pay for a trip from all that, you’re doing something seriously wrong, or you’re not applying yourself to selling enough stories.
These trips are something I need for education, like going to conferences or training sessions, or research trips for authors. They provide me the deeper experience and broader perspective that make me more valuable to an editor, a better presenter to an audience. Travel is essential for this “job,” and I think one of the most apt things we could do to keep the memory of Michael Jackson alive is to raise money to endow a yearly award of a travel stipend to a young and rising writer.
I’m just slack-jawed at how little you seem to get out of these trips. I’ll work a trip notebook for years, multiple stories, yarns spun at beer dinners and lectures. This is gold, Andy. Maybe you’re spending too much time on the trip talking to the other writers about whether you should be on the trip, because as you’ve proven over the past two months, you could just as easily do that from your computer at home.
I do disclosure when I accept a trip and then write a story about it. But I’ve reached the point where I turn down most of these trips because I’ve got my own agenda, and it usually doesn’t coincide with the folks doing the trip.
“People do it [go on trips to breweries in Europe] not for business reasons or journalistic information seeking reasons but because they are fun.”
Sorry, Andy, you’re wrong. At least in my case (and Steve Beaumont’s, and Stan Hieronymus’s, and Ron Givens’s, and Greg Kitsock’s…) I don’t go on the trips to have fun, just to go on a trip. I go to learn, and I usually learn a lot.