As I mentioned, I had Deschutes Brewery’s latest Jubelale (their winter brew) with dinner the other night, and I also have a 750ml bottle of their fresh hop ale, Hop Trip, in the fridge. I haven’t tried it yet, but it is endorsed by one of my favorite local bands, The Elephants.
I didn’t pay for either beer, nor for my last three bottles of Mirror Pond Pale Ale, nor the excellent bottle of Deschutes’s anniversary Belgian-style ale. I’m on their PR list, which means *I regularly receive free beer in the mail.* I also ended up on the Schafer Vineyards PR list, probably because I wrote a few wine columns for MSN a couple years ago. The other day Fedex delivered a bottle of Schafer Merlot and I had to show ID when I signed for it. Carded by the Fedex guy! How cute. “I wonder what kind of alcohol is in that package,” mused Iris.
There’s a point to this beyond just bragging about the free swag. I am not sure how to handle freebies, and I’m asking for reader advice. This can be a very boring topic, I know, so I’m going to lay it out as simply as I can.
Some people claim that getting a product free doesn’t affect their ability to impartially judge its quality. That may be true for them. It’s not true for me. You know the stereotype about writers stampeding for free food? Guilty. (Free beer? Even more so.)
It would be impractical and probably dumb for me to never accept freebies. Here’s an example. I write a column for Seattle Magazine called Chef Test, where I recruit a local chef and we do an ingredient taste-test. In a recent issue, for example, I tasted five olive oils with Ethan Stowell, the chef-owner of Seattle’s hottest Italian restaurant, Tavolata. (The winner was a Spanish olive oil!) Last month I did a tasting at an Eastside Chinese restaurant, and they sent me home with enough food for dinner and lunch the next day. It would have been extremely rude to refuse the food. (I’m sorry to be coy about the ingredient and restaurant involved, but the feature hasn’t run yet.)
I went to a special media lunch last month at Monsoon, a Vietnamese restaurant in my neighborhood, to meet cookbook author Andrea Nguyen. Her book, Into the Vietnamese Kitchen, is the best Vietnamese cookbook in English, by a mile. (She also has a blog.)I write about Asian food, and I was excited to talk to someone who does it so much better than I do. Of course, the lunch, consisting of recipes from Andrea’s book, was awesome.
The usual way that writers deal with this sort of thing is to disclose. I’m not sure how far to take that, though. If I mention a restaurant whose chef I know personally, I’ll tell you. If I mention a beer that came to me via UPS, I’ll tell you. Sometimes I get free review copies of cookbooks. I can mention that, too.
When I wrote restaurant reviews for the Seattle Times, I never met chefs (with one exception I can think of, in the form of Scott Simpson) and never accepted freebies, period. I was able to do that in part because my food was paid for by the Times. I eventually stopped doing reviews for two reasons: I was tired of going out to dinner and missing Iris’s bedtime, and I wanted to write more for the Sunday paper, which required meeting more chefs.
It would be very easy, I think, for me to come up with a justification for any freebie and slide thoughtlessly into being the guy whose opinion is untrustworthy because you never know when he’s talking up something he got for free. What do you, my readers, think? If you don’t care at all and are only here for Iris’s jokes, I can live with that!
And try the Jubelale, it’s great.
Wow, this is timely! I just got approached by a toy company and they are sending Eli a toy that I’ve promised to review on my site. So I was thinking about this very issue yesterday and this morning. I’ll be interested in what folks have to say to you about swag food reviews.
I think it’s pretty hard to be completely unbiased when you are getting something for free. Who doesn’t love free stuff? Even the worst flaws can be partially obscured by the thought of not having to pay actual dollars for the goods/services.
However, in our swag toy situation I think it’s going to be fairly obvious. Either Eli loves it or he doesn’t. He doesn’t care who paid for it or how much it cost. If he keeps asking for the toy every day then it’ll score a thumbs up.
Free toys? I’m in the wrong racket!
I tend to assume that reviewers are getting their food/music/alcohol free (or expensed), and I factor that into my reading of the review. At some point, as Misty wrote, you either like it or you don’t… And it usually doesn’t have that much to do with how much you paid for it. It’s something to stay aware of, and be on the lookout for the thoughtless freebie-lover in yourself, but right now, you should enjoy the fed-ex’d wine! (Sarah and I would be more than willing to help you out with disposing of those freebies, if you still feel ethically compromised.) :P
Speaking of Iris jokes: We were doing a Stegosaurus puzzle that had the skeleton and factoids under the pieces. I read them to her and she really laughed at “the brain was only about the size of a hot dog”. Replies my granddaughter, “mine’s the size of the bun”.
I like to know when reviewers are comped, so that I can factor that into my assessment of their writeup. But I agree with you that turning down freebies just because they’re free is a little daft. On our blog, we accept them (all two of them, so far: An airline bottle of tequila, and a $12 bottle of wine) with the caveat that we don’t agree up-front to cover them, and if we do we’re under no obligation to praise them.
My first rule of thumb is, if I asked for it, I review it. If it’s just sent to me, I review it if I feel like it.
My second rule of thumb is to mention where I got them at the end of the review.
My third rule of thumb is to try to decide if I’d go buy more of whatever it is.
Wow, wish I had three thumbs. Was one of them a freebie?
(sorry, it’s 2:00 am and I just got off work)
Starting out with three thumbs would be a major advantage for a chef, wouldn’t it?
Clearly y’all are more advanced than I when it comes to thinking about this. It hadn’t even occurred to me that I might be required to review something in exchange for a free product. I have turned down a couple of free trips where I would have had to write something.
I like Stephen’s thoughts on the whole thing. YES YES YES should you be accepting free stuff, and then bragging about in online! That sounds so awesome, you lucky duck.
As a reader (I have never written for commercial publication, only research) I can tell you that I do not have a problem with writers who review items that have been comped. What I do have a problem with are writers that only review the products that they liked and ignored the products that they did not, not writing a review at all.
I would like to see more folks writing truthful reviews. If it just so happens that you have liked everything that has been sent to you gratis, then so be it. and tell what it is that you liked about it. But please, if you were comped something, and you feed it to your dog/wouldn’t give it to your worst enemy then do tell us as well. We (as readers) really want to know the good, the bad and the ugly.
I think our society is too focused on trying not to offend anyone that they decide that is best to live by the whole, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” mantra. Mamster – here is how you can be fair and objective – review everything you get. Don’t worry about offending anyone, and we’ll know that the fact the item reviewed was freely given to you did not color your perspective on the product.
P.S… I do come here to Iris’ musings too. :-) When are you all putting out another podcast?
Iris and I just discussed that the other day. We’re planning something polenta-related, but I’m not sure when it’ll be up.
As for negative reviews: I don’t intend to use this blog to review products, per se, at all. But obviously I’m not shy about offending people. :)
I only have two thumbs, but my thumbs are large; they can contain many rules.
The nuances of this get even more fun when I’m trying to parse out the blogger/professional journalist hat. My bloggy space, personal finance, isn’t a particular hot one for Fun Free Things. (Offering free money is just way too blatant. Though hey, if anyone wants to try …) But I do consult for a personal-finance company, which I really couldn’t do if this were my day-job staff-writer beat.
And on the day job, there are companies I have to kind of keep an eye on. It’s generally accepted that journalists at all but the richest and most expense-account-lax publications can let PR people pick up the check for dinner. No problem … except one company I cover routinely likes to order $500 bottles of wine at dinner. Which, um, gets into the more dubious territory.
Basically, my rule of thumb at this point has boiled down to — on the blog, I disclose anything I feel like I should disclose. On the day job, I try to stay out of situations that would look really compromising. And with the one spendy company that I can’t deflect that from without being rude, I cover them only when absolutely necessary, and try not to pull punches.
Now I need beer.