Stranger Eats Its Words
Posted Jan. 24 at 5:25 pm by Aimee Curl
A whiny review of Thomas Street Bistro, a new, pint-sized Capitol Hill eatery, disappeared from The Stranger’s Web site shortly after it was published in the Jan. 3 print edition.
A cached version of the article, “No Exit," now comes up on a Google search, but the URL at the top of the page directs you to a blank Stranger Web page that says: “We’re sorry! The page you're looking for does not seem to exist…." When searching on the Stranger site, the same result occurs.
Even more mysteriously, the restaurant—which writer Chris McCann dubbed “sad," calling the food “depressing," and saying it “reminded him of our very limited capacity for transcendence"—then started running quarter-page ads in the very paper that had panned it two weeks before.
Thomas Street Bistro co-owner Adam Freeman says The Stranger agreed to give him “a deal" on advertising—and immediately yank the story from the site—after he complained about the review. Freeman had previously run ads in the paper. (He has also been an advertiser in Seattle Weekly.)
No explanation was given to readers or published in The Stranger. Today, two hours after the Weekly contacted Stranger publisher Tim Keck, asking to discuss the matter, an explanation from editor Christopher Frizzelle went up on the Stranger’s blog. It said, “Two weeks ago we pulled the review from our web archive because our timing was off." McCann’s piece went “against our editorial policy of waiting at least three months before doing a formal review of a new restaurant," Frizzelle wrote.
Added Keck in an interview: “We don’t feel like it was a fair review." Though Keck confirms the restaurant was given free advertising, he says it was not part of any deal or “quid pro quo" to quiet the angry owner. He says there were “production errors" in previous ads the bistro had run in his paper.
Freeman, who immigrated to the United States 10 years ago, opened Thomas Street Bistro on Thanksgiving. He says the reviewer came calling a few weeks later and brought a baby to the restaurant, which, with about eight tables, is smaller than most living rooms. Freelance writer McCann confirms this, adding: “Honestly I tried to make the review as fair as I could." He says he, too, was never told that the story had been pulled or given an explanation.
“Taking something down is very unusual, especially if there’s no note of it at all," says Kelly McBride, ethics group leader at the Poynter Institute, the leading think tank for journalists. “This is outside the pale of how you would normally handle a mistake."
UPDATE: Further research indicates that the Stranger’s 3-month “policy” is either newly invented or a complete fiction. The paper recently reviewed restaurants such as Txori, Joule, and Chiso Kappo (also faulted for lack of "transcendence") well before any of those had been open for three months. Those reviews have yet to be pulled from the Stranger’s Web site.
Here, for instance, is the Stranger's reviewer on Joule: "People are surprised to find out that, as someone who makes a living writing about restaurants, I'm ambivalent about reviewing new ones..." Yada, yada, more about me, etc. etc...."But then there are places like Joule in Wallingford — open for just over a month — a restaurant about which I have been unable to contain my excitement."
UPDATE: As of Friday afternoon, the "unfair review" that was taken down because it violated Stranger "editorial policy" was reposted on the Stranger site. Things are a little in flux over there.
Topics: Crime & Punishment
Comments
Of course you can't really pull something from the Internet, and if you want to, you can still still read the full review, thanks to Google's evil, unblinking eye.
Posted Jan. 24 at 7:57 pm by david stoeszJust imagine what the Stranger would be writing if the P-I or Times pulled a stunt like this.
Posted Jan. 25 at 9:43 am by fred rogersonJust imagine what real journalism could be done if the Weekly stopped it's obession with how bad and evil the Stranger is. Homeless sweeps? The Mayor's office?
Posted Jan. 25 at 12:40 pm by jmgHey Jmg!
Have you read any of the last ...oh I dunno month and a half of the Seattle Weekly these issues have been addressed countless times. =)
*They've had cover stories on the Mayor and his office about 4-5 times in the last year and this isn't counting continuous blogging; side stories and columns.
Posted Jan. 25 at 1:14 pm by Bit."A little in flux"?
Oh, you wacky Seattle Weekly. Unable to attract any real talent to your paper, you publish reviews, smug and deeply sophisticated, laughing tenderly behind your hands at the way you can create a bon mot at the expense of your competition. And yet, when it comes to actual journalism, actual stories, and actual information that this city pays attention to, the Stranger beats the Weekly, hands down. Who went to cover the Iowa caucauses? Who sends reporters - actual reporters, not people who couldn't get hired over at the PI or Times? Who actually reports on the Seattle government, instead of allowing its shoddy press releases to run with minor editing as front pages? Weekly, a whole can of whupass in "whose journalistic cock is bigger" will let you fail with splendor and abandon. And your readership will smugly make a bon mot. Oh, how very.
Posted Jan. 25 at 10:29 pm by TybaltThe Iowa caucuses, yeah that's the "acctual journalism" Seattle needs (along with the Stranger's intensive City Council coverage that's read by, well, the City Council - even if they had to come to the Weekly for coverage of Strippergate including the revelation this week of a $55,000 settlement). Typically, the Stranger tried to cover up this latest embarrassment by pretending it was funny - reinstating the review by saying it was "back by popular demand." But they got one-upped by a commenter yesterday who said: "If you are bringing things back by popular demand, can you remove The Stranger from your Web site and replace it with The Rocket?" Now the paper has finally explained, saying it was all done to be fair to the restaurant, but most importantly it was changing its policy and wouldn't do things this way anymore - thanks, of course, to the Weekly.
Posted Jan. 26 at 7:09 am by Ed R MurrowTybalt: The Stranger covers the ntl campaigns so Dan can tell his friends they're covering the ntl campaigns; the stories are banal and routine,with no local focus, and are about as relevant to innovative political coverage as door-knob licking. The Stranger is about The Stranger, with its "news" filtered through an untrustworthy prism of assumptions, vendettas and poor reporting standards. It's a process that produces sub-quality journalism (the Weekly has always been the better-written and more reliable of the two) and leads to scandals such as this one. Like mom said, never trust a Stranger.
Posted Jan. 26 at 11:41 am by EllenThe Stranger staff works hard... to provide the "facts" to back up whatever snarky pre-conceived point of view happens to in fashion on cap hill this month. It's a fun read, but it starts sounding like the same hipper-than-thou merry-go-round after a while.
Posted Jan. 27 at 11:28 pm by ObserverAn example of what people have known about The Stranger for years; no ad account: no or negative publicity.
Posted Jan. 28 at 6:05 pm by yes!Hey, "Ed"? Every reporter in town, as well as everyone subscribed to Ethics and Elections' email list, got that press release from Wayne Barnett. Not exactly a revelation.
Posted Jan. 29 at 1:10 am by Helen ThomasIt's no big deal, but I went back and checked. The Weakly reported it Jan. 22, the dailies on Jan. 23.
Posted Jan. 29 at 8:24 am by Ed