This is the editor’s note from our series “The Reckoning in Food Media” — a collection of reporting, essays, and criticism about the holes that still exist in food media — and what its future could look like when we look to its past. Read more here.
In summer of 2020, mainstream media organizations coast to coast — from the Los Angeles to the New York Times — publicly, and messily, grappled with their histories of harm, systemic racism and pay discrimination.
Food media wasn’t exempt. Once a photo of former editor-in-chief Adam Rapaport in brownface was surfaced on Twitter by former staff, Conde Nast’s Bon Appétit Magazine leapt from the fire to the frying pan: A stream of BA Test Kitchen chefs, starting with Sohla El-Waylly, called out Test Kitchen’s pay discrimination between chefs of color and white chefs, and promptly left the organization.
But a “reckoning” doesn’t make systemic change. Food writers like Soleil Ho and Dan Q. Dao highlighted that food media’s systemic whiteness isn’t just about its staff, but about the recipes and chefs it celebrates.
Three years after food media institutions pledged to do better, The Objective, in partnership with L.A. Taco, is publishing The Reckoning in Food Media, a collection of reporting, essays, and criticism about the holes that still exist in food media — and what its future could look like when we look to its past.
Gaps in coverage still exist, from uncritical celebration of “farm-to-table” ethos, to a Eurocentric recipe focus, to social media’s impact on the food landscape in cities. This issue’s pieces ask: Who’s making food media? What’s missing? What broader conversations should be about who makes our food and who gets to eat well?
Dig in. And let us know what you think.
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The Objective is a nonprofit newsroom holding journalism accountable for past and current systemic biases in reporting and newsroom practices. We are written by and for those underrepresented in journalism.
