Gold, who has won a Pulitzer Prize for his work at the Weekly, had always been a freelancer for the paper -- until now. He's now on staff, where he'll continue writing his columns and also beging contributing to Squid Ink, the Weekly's food blog.
This week's New Yorker has a profile of the Pulitzer-winning L.A. Weekly food critic that has reportedly been "almost a year in the making." While the full article is available only to subscribers, here's an interesting tidbit from an abstract on the magazine's website: "To Gold's readers, his reviews have the ontological status that the New York Times has for people interested in current events: he doesn't write about it because it is, it is because he's written about it."
The Association of Food Journalists last week named the winners of its 2009 Awards Competition at a banquet in New Orleans. Seattle Weekly's Jonathan Kauffman won first place for Best Newspaper Restaurant Criticism and Creative Loafing (Atlanta)'s Besha Rodell took home first for Best Newspaper Food Feature. (Riverfront Times' Kristen Hinman took third in that category.) Kauffman's victory marks the fourth year in a row that a Village Voice Media paper has won the Best Newspaper Restaurant Criticism category.
When the Times announced this week that it was moving food critic Frank Bruni to a new assignment writing for the Times Magazine, foodies immediately began speculating as to whom the paper would replace him with. The Associated Press says LA Weekly's Pulitzer-winning critic Jonathan Gold is one of the "obvious contenders," while Eater has him as a "dark horse," with 250-1 odds. Eater also pegs Village Voice critic Robert Sietsema an "underdog," giving him 1000-1 odds. Meanwhile, the Times staffer who will lead the search says she hasn't started thinking about who will be named for what the AP calls "what's widely considered the most important restaurant critic job in the country."
Miami New Times' Lee Klein and Seattle Weekly's Jonathan Kauffman finished first in the Newspaper and Internet categories, respectively, in this year's Bert Greene Awards. In addition, the Austin Chronicle's MM Pack was a finalist in the Newspaper category. The awards, which are organized by the International Association of Culinary Professionals, "recognize excellence in food journalism." Winners were announced last weekend in Denver.
AAN members are once again well-represented in the list of nominees for this year's James Beard Foundation Awards for Journalism. The finalists: L.A. Weekly's Pulitzer-prize winning critic Jonathan Gold in the Restaurant Reviews; Kristen Hinman of Riverfront Times in Newspaper Feature Writing Without Recipes; and the Chicago Reader's Mike Sula in Multimedia Food Journalism. Winners will be announced at a May 4 gala in New York.
Mark Gold is executive director of Heal the Bay, a Southern California environmental nonprofit, which can lead to some interesting exchanges with his brother, LA Weekly's Pulitzer-winning food writer. "I am already anticipating the nasty glare I will inevitably get from my marine-scientist brother," J. Gold wrote recently in a report on eating whale in Korea, "[who] has dedicated his life to pretty much the opposite of this." On his blog, M. Gold wonders: "If only Jonathan focused on sustainable seafood for a year, imagine the positive impact he'd have on local restaurants and the dietary choices of the food obsessed." But the food writer (who recently signed on for a column at Gourmet) gets the last word (thus far) in his brother's blog comments. "I stress the local-sustainable-organic trope in my columns almost to the point of self-ridicule," he writes, "and I would as soon amputate a toe as buy meat or fish from a supermarket."
Matt Coker, who came to Sacramento from the OC Weekly last Spring, was dismissed earlier this month, the Sacramento Bee reports. In addition, the paper's arts editor, Jonathan Kiefer, has resigned. News & Review CEO Jeff von Kaenel tells the Bee that Melinda Welsh will serve as interim editor until a permanent replacement is found. "(Melinda and I) have worked together for 20 years and we'll continue to make sure we're putting out a great paper," he says.
Creative Loafing has named Jonathan Maziarz as editor of the Sarasota edition. He succeeds Max Linsky, who has been named manager and online editor for Creative Loafing's corporate office. "With nearly 500 columns under his belt, Maziarz has edited newspapers in the mountains of Colorado, the shores of Lake Tahoe and, most recently, on the coast of Georgia," according to a press release. "I admire the Creative Loafing philosophy of providing a serious alternative to the mainstream media, mixing a strong sense of community with an independent spirit and a sense of humor," Maziarz says in the release. "I am ready to bring my experience, leadership and enthusiasm to the CL team."
Last week Jonathan Rosenbaum retired from his full-time job at the Reader, but the paper says he'll continue reviewing for the paper and writing for its website. The Reader, which has been Rosenbaum's home for more than 20 years, has compiled some of his favorite reviews and has a two-part video interview where he discusses his departure. He says he is leaving to have more free time. "I hope it won't be lessening my productivity, but it'll be shifting it to things that ... I'm more interested in, and not having to see a lot of movies that I'm not interested in." He says he'd also like to be able to do "other kinds of writing which would be broader than film criticism."
