On an October night in 1971, a group of food editors gathered in the hotel room of Milwaukee Journal food editor Peggy Daum. The women were in Chicago for the annual Newspaper Food Editors Conference. The American Association of Newspaper Representatives – along with food businesses such as the American Meat Institute – began hosting the conferences in 1943. The week-long event included sessions that were a mix of promotions of new food products, along with the discussion of food policies.

Daum and the other food editors had just listened to Utah Senator Frank Moss criticize their profession. He had charged them with being nothing more than shills for food companies and to succumbing to press agency practices. He questioned their ethics and even suggested the government should investigate the work of food and other consumer journalists. The women in Daum’s room had heard enough. They set forth that evening to create an organization of their own and based on the ethics that they knew they already upheld. Within two years, the organization was up and running, along with a code of ethics that built upon those of traditional journalism organizations – but with a food twist.

Simply because women’s voices were absent from the traditional news industry organizations where ethical guidelines were discussed and formulated did not mean that female journalists, particularly those working for the women’s sections, did not possess an appreciation for ethics. The women gathered in Daum’s Chicago hotel room did not appreciate the accusations being leveled at them by Sen. Frank Moss. And immediately on the heels of Moss’s assertions, the Columbia Journalism Review published a scathing critique of the food sections. Again, these section editors took umbrage with these allegations. The result was the formation of what is today known as the Association of Food Journalists (AFJ).

Please follow and like us:

On an October night in 1971, a group of food editors gathered in the hotel room of Milwaukee Journal food editor Peggy Daum. The women were in Chicago for the annual Newspaper Food Editors Conference. The American Association of Newspaper Representatives – along with food businesses such as the American Meat Institute – began hosting the conferences in 1943. The week-long event included sessions that were a mix of promotions of new food products, along with the discussion of food policies.

Daum and the other food editors had just listened to Utah Senator Frank Moss criticize their profession. He had charged them with being nothing more than shills for food companies and to succumbing to press agency practices. He questioned their ethics and even suggested the government should investigate the work of food and other consumer journalists. The women in Daum’s room had heard enough. They set forth that evening to create an organization of their own and based on the ethics that they knew they already upheld. Within two years, the organization was up and running, along with a code of ethics that built upon those of traditional journalism organizations – but with a food twist.

Simply because women’s voices were absent from the traditional news industry organizations where ethical guidelines were discussed and formulated did not mean that female journalists, particularly those working for the women’s sections, did not possess an appreciation for ethics. The women gathered in Daum’s Chicago hotel room did not appreciate the accusations being leveled at them by Sen. Frank Moss. And immediately on the heels of Moss’s assertions, the Columbia Journalism Review published a scathing critique of the food sections. Again, these section editors took umbrage with these allegations. The result was the formation of what is today known as the Association of Food Journalists (AFJ).

Please follow and like us: