This discussion broke out elsewhere so it may have come from one of those posts, or comments are even from earlier offline conversations.

I am sending Andy an e-mail to see if he was paraphrasing or quoting.

I’ve gone through this entire thread and have to ask; Who said the above?

The only thing I see missing in the discussion is appropriate application of an ethical code. In government, ethical guidelines are measured by the degree of authority you are given. The rules are the same but they are pressed more firmly, more comprehensively when you make policy decisions or even made quasi-judicial decisions. For those who only advise or participate, the rules are less strict.

I see underlying this discourse levels of dedication to beer writing. When I say I am a writer but not a journalist, I think that covers most bloggers. But I do get ads unlike most bloggers so my beer and travel is pretty much covered. When I dipped my toe into writing for journals, I got pay but had less control and the money wasn’t that good – so I had less interest in it and maybe was less concerned with the quality of the output. When I think about writing a book, I think about how I would swing that on my own nickle and I think about how much I like snoozing and it never happens. Is it possible that the idea of a one-for-all code is the problem, that Lew’s complaint that it is divisive is because it does not categorize?

I hope that makes some sense as I have yet to have my coffee this morning.

I’ve been writing professionally (i.e. for pay) about beer for a little over 8 years, and about other topics for a little over a decade. In that time, Lew and I have written side by side for at least one publication for the better part of that eight year term. I’ve probably published a couple hundred articles on beer (not including my website) during that term and one book. With that said, and as much inside baseball stuff as I know, I have never heard the tale of the NAGBW’s demise having involved ethics. I’d like to hear it (either on or off this site) to help inform my opinions about the past and future. Until I do, I can say that it’s not about having a centralized code of conduct. I think each writer should (although I believe that few do) have their own code and that editors and publishers should detail and promulgate such a code for their writers (I know none in the beer trade that do).

In all honesty, I guess in some respects I’ve been pulling punches on this subject, both in this debate and in others. While I take occasional shots at the ‘hacks’ ‘amateurs’ or whatever you want to call the dozens upon dozens of writers who write for little or no money (usually love of trade is enough for their simple efforts) and see nothing but free beer and schwag for remuneration, they aren’t the true focus of my ire. It’s actually the more well-known beer writers who draw the sharpest ethical spear for me. Names we all know and who readers outside of our niche would be familiar with. People who play by rules that not only do I not agree with, but the most basic ethical guidelines would not allow. To Stan’s concern about this getting a bit too hot under the collar, it has not been my purpose to name call. That’s why I’ve said we are all sinners (myself included for the third time), it’s about setting some basic rules, pledging or not to follow them, and then moving forward for the betterment of our writing trade and the industry we all love to cover (and enjoy).

I’m not sure what you mean by a willingness to discuss ethics; I’ve been under the presumption that this is what I’ve been doing all along and well before this. I’ve laid out some basic prescriptions on my website. The NAGBW had others, as do countless other organizations and publishers.

I’ll leave it at this. A week or so back I posted some basic guidelines from the NAGBW and the Society of Professional Journalists.

I’ll leave the link and would be interested in discussing and debating the particularities of these basic tenets with anyone who so chooses.

http://www.beerscribe.com/2008/04/09/media-draft-ethics-and-beer-writing-continued/

With respect to all who have contributed so far, including the very respect worthy Lew Bryson,

Andy Crouch

I love this conversation, although I don’t want to see it go a direction that causes readers here (if there are any) to think any less of either of you.

Andy, I agree that publications should pay better (well, that was self serving) and demand more (again, egotistical enough to think I could manage that). But I’m not optimistic about seeing that happen.

More transparency? Great idea. But most bloggers and regular contributors to the beer discussion sites are paying for their own beer. Does that make them better writers? Of course not. Also doesn’t make them worse.

I’ve lived in the world of journalism for more than 40 years and – at the risk of appearing paranoid – I know that readers expect the worst of you. When I was a sports writer, for instance, they always thought I was rooting for the other team.

So, in that way, Andy is correct about the importance of appearances.

On the other side, Lew is correct about credibility being earned. That’s both credibility with readers and with editors. So Lew gains that with Portfolio. Evan Rail earns that with the NY Times. Greg Kitsock with the Washington Post.

Meahwile, as I typed this – and twittered and emailed in a variety of conversations about tonight’s pirmary – Lew chimed back in with an important point. We need more reporters fulltime on the beer beat.

I’ll leave it at that other than to say hey, Bob, I’m not sure I should say thanks or not for poking this conversation back to life.

What rubs me the wrong way is this: “It means you should be writing only part-time or only in your free time (which, ironically, I think is probably the case already for most “beer writers”) in terms of business sense or journalistic ethics.”

Speaking as one of the few full-timers in the field, I struggle continually with the debris left by the passage of the ‘free-beer-and-a-byline’ writers — who I consider to be a large part of the low-pay problem — but also with the issues brought on by wine writers who have the relationships with food editors to get the assignments and then turn out crap beer articles, by staff writers who just get the assignment because they’re there (“I don’t know much about beer, but…” is one of the most infuriating sentences in journalism for me).

I do see bad pay leading to questionable ethical practices, because of the way I see editors purposely turning a blind eye to them so they can get the story they want without paying what they should for it. If editors won’t pay me what a story should be worth, won’t negotiate, and then won’t pay for additional use of a story — which is flat-out wrong — what the hell am I supposed to think of them? Lack of honor begets a lack of honor, in either direction.

What rubs me the wrong way is that I’ve chosen to leap into this full-time, to take the risk, to try to do this while writing fairly and accurately and without fear — as much as my editors will allow, which gets to be more and more each year, happily — and then someone who has not had to make that leap comes along and tells me I need better ethical standards… Yeah, that rubs. If I infer too much, if I seem defensive, well, I say it because I’ve already been through this with the NAGBW ten years ago, and I watched the fight over ethics, this very same fight, destroy that organization.

Are you willing to discuss ethics? Or only to prescribe them?

My point has been and continues to be that the excuse that writers covering beer cannot follow ethical rules because of low pay is simply a cover for unprofessional behavior. And I think it begets bad pay due to unprofessionalism and a degradation in respect. Do I think people writing about beer, whether for magazines, newspapers, blogs, or other mediums are underpaid, certainly. Does that give them free license to act unprofessionally (i.e. against even the most basic ethical guidelines), I’m sorry, I don’t. Perhaps this is where we all disagree. And that’s fine, so long as I as a consumer know which writers follow ethical guidelines and which don’t. Because I believe that if a writer is receiving money or benefits from someone/something that they are covering and they don’t disclose it, that’s unprofessional, unethical, and something worth knowing.
A lack of good pay is no excuse. It means you should be writing only part-time or only in your free time (which, ironically, I think is probably the case already for most “beer writers”) in terms of business sense or journalistic ethics. Again, the part timers and amateurs may not even know about journalistic ethics. That’s why I think it’s probably more important to lean on the editors and publishers in the beer trade to enforce these rules (calling Tony Forder, Tom Dalldorf, Julie Johnson Bradford, et al). I don’t see it happening in these publications and I think it should be.

I know this subject rubs you the wrong way but uncomfortable as it may be (for all of us, as I said, none of us are without sin on these issues), I still think it’s a worthwhile endeavor for the future.