Although I am a former newspaper reporter and magazine editor, I am not an online media critic (although I have my opinions).
But it gets my attention that the New York Times has recently run a Style-section photo piece on waterfowling shotguns, another business story on ammunition marketing, and today a straightforward piece on Long Island's first public turkey hunt.
The cooking of wild turkeys is also acknowledged.
Is the "mainstream media" starting to mainstream hunting and shooting just a little?
UPDATE: In her comment, Holly Heyser points to yet another piece about foodies-turned-hunters. It's a trend for sure!
3 comments:
You bet it is. NYT has a reporter who's regularly doing hunting stories (Michael Brick). My local paper - the Sacramento Bee - is also showing way more openness to the idea that hunting has value (which is nice because they pay me to write about it from time to time).
I personally think the slow food/sustainable food movement has a lot to do with it - the media can see that plenty of ethical people who care about the environment and their health are hunting for their food.
Conversely, have you seen the latest Field & Stream? There's a huge spread on high-end food from wild game, with contributions from lots of chefs (and yes, my boyfriend too).
And I almost hate to use this word, but I'm going to anyway: I think we're seeing some gentrification here. I just hope it doesn't come with the usual backlash. I have seen it once or twice - most notably in response to an SF Chronicle story about a group of foodies becoming hunters. Some hunter trashed them in the comments section online - ridiculed their hunting and their motives, which was utterly unhelpful.
And speak of the devil, here's a NYT story today about foodie hunters, quoting (among others) the SF group.
Very interesting, Holly.
Three stories--it must be a trend!
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