Public Eye

Oh, sure, before shooting from the hip Friday afternoon and announcing that LA Weekly food critic Jonathan Gold had been hired by The New York Times, which happens to need a restaurant writer just now, I could have done the traditional triple-checking I did as a reporter, required my staff to do when I was editor of the Pasadena Star-News for 13 years and do myself now when writing opinion pieces.

For God's sake, I could have just called Jonathan, or the NYT.

But fact-checking -- that's so old media.

Whereas in blog-land, as anyone who reads them knows, considering all the nonsense that's floating about, anything goes.

Anyway, that's my excuse. But Jonathan himself posted that he has neither been offered nor has he accepted the plum job. And I have to go with him as a pretty good source on this story.

So my posting was pretty lame, considering that I do pride myself, as do all working journalists, on accuracy.

But I had it from not one but two prominent Southern California food professionals. One said she'd heard the news two weeks ago.

Guess we heard it wrong.

Still, if he has to go from hereabouts, we could still read him if he were writing about New York restaurants, and we could dream. Hey NYT -- if you need a great critic, and who doesn't, I know where to find one ...