Eater.com has the details, and quotes departing critic Hanna Raskin as saying the position is being replaced with someone who will “write press releases, create brochures and represent the paper at public events.” While Raskin says that Seattle Weekly hasn’t “ruled out the possibility” of running restaurant reviews, it is “unclear who might write them,” which makes it sound pretty damn unlikely. To have less food coverage in Seattle—less public discussion of what’s become a great local food and restaurant scene—is sad.
Last Wednesday, Seattle Weekly eliminated its music editor position.
I’ve emailed Seattle Weekly‘s new editor in chief Mark Baumgarten for comment. Baumgarten took the editor in chief job last month.
UPDATE: Mark Baumgarten responds:
The new Food + Drink Editor position will not involve writing press releases and brochures as a primary function, although it will involve contributing to public communication about developments with our Food + Drink coverage. It’s one of the editor’s many tasks, as it is one of mine. In fact, I just wrote a press release about Hanna’s departure and the new position this morning.
The press release is after the jump.
UPDATE #2:
Seattle Weekly‘s editor in chief Mark Baumgarten writes:
Seattle Weekly will continue to review restaurants. The shape of that review coverage and who will be writing those reviews will be largely determined by the editor we hire to run the section.
HANNA RASKIN LEAVING SEATTLE WEEKLY FOLLOWING RESTRUCTURE
For the past two years Hanna Raskin has served as Seattle Weekly’s Food Critic, providing our readers with expertly-written accounts of her culinary sojourns every week. In addition to rich and engaging feature writing, she has presented studied, insightful and honest criticism about this city’s food, helping readers to avoid the bad, and enjoy the good. As Food Critic, she has been a great asset to this paper.
As we shift the structure of Seattle Weekly following a change in ownership and editorial leadership, the Food Critic position is being eliminated to make room for a Food + Drink Editor position (description below). Because of this change and Hanna’s desire to remain focused on food writing, she has decided to leave the ranks of Seattle Weekly’s full-time editorial staff. She will wrap up her tenure at the end of this month, although her reviews will run for two weeks past that date. We have welcomed her to contribute more in the future and hope that she does.
In the coming weeks we will be hiring a Food + Drink Editor, whose job it will be to oversee the development and daily operations of Seattle Weekly’s Food + Drink coverage. The editor will be responsible for ushering in a new, more robust weekly product that will feature criticism alongside features, columns and more experimental fare from some of Seattle’s savviest food writers. This editor will also be responsible for keeping readers abreast of trending topics and daily news on the Voracious blog, maintaining Seattle Weekly’s up-to-date and exhaustive online dining listings and planning our annual Restaurant Guide. And he or she will write about the city’s restaurants, be they new and noteworthy, longstanding and worth another look, or hidden in plain sight and waiting to be discovered.
We thank Hanna for all of her hard work and we wish her well as she continues to blaze a path in the world of food criticism.