Willamette Week and the grain of salt

The lingering effects of "salt-gate"--the revelation that Willamette Week food reviewer Jim Dixon also supplies some ingredients to restaurants--continue to trouble my mind. This story arose when Dixon pronounced the food at Castagna as lacking salt, and the Castagna owners pointed out Dixon's conflict of interest in a letter to the editor. While I praise Willy Week for having the courage and honesty to print the letter, I sat flabbergasted at the idea that they would allow this practice. Worse, their editor had the nerve to advertise (free of charge, we assume) for Dixon's business in her response.

It seems to me that for Willamette Week to avoid cozying up to the Portland power structure as the Oregonian seems to do, they would have gone the opposite direction and a) required all writers to disclose any conflicts of interest, b) promised not to hire any new writers with conflicts, and c) looked very seriously at replacing Dixon and any other writers with conflicts in the near term. That they left it to Dixon to write about whether he has a conflict of interest tells me that's not the direction they're heading.

Already I have heard many rumblings of--and noticed myself a correlation between--advertising in Willamette Week and getting mentioned in reviews. I wonder if any newspaper rises above this practice. The Mercury and Tribune also show signs of this tendency. But for a paper to allow writers to work in the business they review goes a step beyond what I can accept. Dixon writes "Readers will either trust what I have to say or not."

Well..."not".

I call on WW here and in a letter I will send them to expand their disclosure to all writers, at the very least.