Regards
John

I have gone on such trips, and if I am asked and the trip is to an interesting place, I would go again. As a California-oriented writer, I don’t get asked much, but I do write about European and down under wines several times a year, so who knows.

I have written favorably about wines that I like and have ignored a lot of wines I did not like. Just because you have asked, I was unfamiliar with but liked very much the reds from Mount Etna in Sicily, and I also taste a Sicilian Fiano that I liked very much. Oh, and Ben Rye dessert wine from Donnafugata is damn nice stuff as well. In Spain, I discovered that I did like Rose after all, when poured very special wines in Navarra made from old vine Garnacha and aged a bit in wood to pick up some complexity and smoothness.

I am very clear about the fact that I have gone on the trips, that the wines commented on were tasted with the labels showing at the wineries, and in those instances, I have commented that I will not assign point or star ratings because of the way that the wines were tasted.

I have no problem with Leslie Sbrocco doing infomercials. She is a performer and a very good one. She is a professional, she is an experienced taster and she makes a great impression. I just do not like, and cannot support, the notion that this kind of thing is done without comment. And I think Mr. Dawson agrees wholeheartedly with that sentiment.

Since you counsel, properly, that “the media . . . has to be honest with its constituents,” may we ask you some questions?

Have you ever gone on what is familiarly called a media junket sponsored by a commercial wine interest?

Afterward did you both write, and write favorably, about wines you experienced?

If you did write favorably (or negatively), did you explicitly tell readers that the material in front of them was made possible by your having accepted paid hospitality?

Here’s why these questions are legitimate:

Even as Leslie Sbrocco partnered with Beringer, when a wine writer accepts travel hospitality from a special interest, in effect an understanding about the relationship of the guest to the host is present. This situation harbors not only the potential of conflict of interest for the writer but, no less important, the appearance of conflict of interest. Both come to the same thing.

For more than two decades, I’ve heard perhaps every argument in the book used to justify the acceptance of such trips. Perhaps the central one is this: If hosts don’t sponsor trips, wine writers, most of whom barely make a living from their chosen work, don’t learn what can be learned only on the spot. They’re right, they can’t. That’s a frustration, a misfortune.

I wholly empathize with the need to accept those trips: not everyone is fortunate enough to serve publications that pay for their trips and that also make nonacceptance of them easy by forbidding them entirely. I envy those trips: lots of like-minded people have lots of fun.

But the bedrock, discomforting fact is that junket sponsors are trying to buy coverage — they know it, their beneficiaries know it — and more often than not they get it. It’s what used to be called a “gentlemen’s agreement.” Nothing’s said, but everything’s done.

Where do you stand, in principle and practice, on this facet of the partnership issue?

Mr. Dawson figured it out pretty quickly, so full props to him. He commented that all of these so-called free feeds are sponsored one way or another. The station did not ask–so maybe “had to know” goes too far, but, in this case, they cannot escape blame just because they are the messenger.

For my part, I think all these infomercials should be called out for what they are. I see the point of Beringer doing it if they can get three minutes of air time, and I can see the station being willing to put it on as a kind of public service if they find the topic and the content acceptable.

And if Ms. Sbrocco knowlingly added the disclaimer to her website after the fact and claimed otherwise, then she is rightfully being held accountable for that state of affairs. My point is this. The media, of which I am a small part, has to be honest with its constituents. If not, they do not deserve their license in this case or my readers in my case.

Can you explain how they “had to know” and they ran it “knowing what it was”? One certainly wouldn’t know it was a Fosters/Beringers product placement from the pitch, nor from Sbrocco’s website (as of the time of interview). How is the station to run a disclaimer? She was presented as an author, and authors are probably the single most common guest other than maybe actors- but we all assume they are plugging their books or films or shows.
I understand Ms. Sbrocco has many friends and many fans, but while maybe I can accept somehow the pitch that doesn’t mention Beringers is not her doing, and maybe she had trouble answering because she hadn’t had her coffee, her reference to her website “clearly” showing the relationship while not mentioning that it was edited later puts her in the duplicitous camp in my eyes.

Point taken. It is part of the larger point on which you and I are in complete agreement. The discussions of wine quality need to be done openly and transparently. This may have been run as a “news” type feed by the TV station, which is why they cannot escape blame in my eyes, but it is also true that it is a kind of infomercial and should be disclosed as such.

These days, for example, many movies have disclaimers at the end telling the audience, if they have stayed around through five minutes of cast and crew notices, that the product placements are paid for.

I was amused last night watching Breakfast at Tiffany’s when a freshly painted truck with the Rogers, Peet logo drove past the action. I used to walk past that store on my way to class back a few decades ago. Never shopped there. Could not afford it. But the clothes were lovely. You would not have seen any acknowledgment that this was a paid product placement at the end of B at Tiffs.

We know about product placements. We see them all the time. This was a product placement, and the TV station had to know that but said nothing. Dawson may have let the cat out of the bag, but his station ran this infomercial knowing what it was. That is why this cannot come back to Sbrocco and Beringer alone.

And, Daniel, when my new book comes out, and I appear on Letterman, do I have to tell the world that the publisher’s publicist arranged it? Yeh, I know. Wishful thinking.

Leslie also did not disclose that she was paid by Beringer on her website.

You can blame Beringer and Leslie in my eyes.

They are both guilty of deceit. If she had disclosed it on her website (which she does now, but had not then), then I would be more forgiving.

Since then, however, Leslie has become a hot property because she is easy on the eyes, charming as hell and talks well and easily and has enough depth of knowledge, tasting experience and perspective to be a very useful spokesperson.

She does not do wine criticism to my knowledge, and should not be held to the same standards as Mr. Parker and his children. The failure here lies more with Beringer than with Ms. Sbrocco. She is doing a job for which she is very well-suited. I don’t see how the deception is laid exclusively at her doorstep so much as at the sponsors, and frankly, even to the TV station that should have done its due diligence before airing the segment.

And frankly, you cannot blame Beringer for sponsoring the event. They are in the business of selling wine. No one is looking at the media here. Take a look at the question that Castello asks. How much of what we see everyday on TV, in the movies consist of paid advertising. Ever watch Breakfast At Tiffany’s or You’ve Got Mail?

B at Tiffs was on last night. I saw a product placement for a men’s store I used to shop at in college. Funny how I missed that the first three times I saw the movie. Too late now. They are out of business.

But, the business of business is business, and it is not only up to Beringer and Sbrocco to be open about what is going on here. It should never have been aired in the first place by the TV station without a disclaimer.

http://dat.erobertparker.com/bboard/showthread.php?t=213657

I think it is safe to say that dementia has set in.

She should have been transparent about the Beringer connection…but seems much ado about very little….just how many of posters here plug their friend’s wines, etc….without any disclosure about personal friendships?…..and perhaps she intended to say something about her sponsorship before the reporter brought it up..BTW…..met her once for a total of a minute or two…seemed charming and professional…

Given Parker’s own lack of oversight of plugs and sponsorships among the coterie of reviewers who write for his Wine Advocate, it’s perhaps no surprise that he rises in Sbracco’s defense. But so much for being a consumer advocate.