Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Suckling vs. Miller: The difference between scandals

Jay Miller of the Wine Advocate and James Suckling of "I'm Here" have both been embroiled in scandals regarding payments for reviews in the last year. Miller resigned his position; Suckling can't really resign from being himself, though he could consider firing his hair stylist.

There's a tendency to lump them together, especially because as Evan Dawson points out, one of the reactions to media coverage of both has been to threaten groundless libel lawsuits in an attempt to shut up bloggers like myself. (Didn't work, nyah nyah.)

Moreover, the blogosphere generally dislikes both men for different reasons. Miller had been mocked for years for his overenthusiastic 100-point scores for big syrupy wines. I don't see as many people mocking Suckling for his palate or his ratings, but his personality ... well, take a look at the "I'm Here" video.



But there's an essential difference between the scandals, and it is this: If the worst thing Miller had been accused of, and has since been exonerated of, had been true, that would truly have been a scandal.

I simply don't see a scandal in the worst thing Suckling was accused of, until he started lying about it. If he would only be honest, we could all move on.


A brief recap: Miller was accused of demanding money from a regional wine association, through an associate, to review that region's wines. I want to be very clear that it has since emerged that Miller saw none of this money.

That potential scandal was worth investigating for a couple of reasons. For one thing, to Robert Parker's credit, his published ethical standards are as strong as anyone's in the business, and Miller's behavior seemed like it might contradict them.

But even without those standards, the idea is dangerous. If the Paso Robles wine association pays me to issue 100-point-rating reviews of its wines, how can I be objective? Wouldn't they have the right to complain about the ratings, since that's what they're paying for? How could a consumer trust those ratings?

What Suckling was accused of -- and apparently did -- is very different. The retailing monopoly of the state of Quebec paid Suckling, and one deliverable it received was tasting notes for wines in its stores. Those notes could then be used as shelf talkers to sell the wines.

If Quebec was paying Suckling to give 95-point raves to wines he didn't like, that would be a scandal. But I just don't see a problem in him taking money from Quebec instead of Wine Spectator. The guy delivers tasting notes for money; that's his job. If he tastes 10 wines and likes 5, Quebec could choose to use his notes on those 5 and ignore the others. We can get into a longer debate about why writers don't publish negative tasting notes, but the established industry practice at Wine Spectator and the Wine Advocate is to publish only mostly positive reviews, so I can't see how Quebec's use of the reviews would be any different.

Suckling should just own up to it. In fact, he could do the rest of the wine-writing profession -- and indeed the entire journalistic profession -- a favor if he would just make one of his precious videos about it explaining that professional writing means writing for money. ("I'm Here cashing the check. I'm Here buying groceries with the money.")

Instead, he's making writing for money seem shameful, as if writers should all be independently wealthy and should provide services just because of our love of adjectives.

Suckling is apparently ashamed of writing, so he now claims he's a filmmaker, at least when he's getting paid. I can't decide who that is more insulting to: writers or filmmakers. He's essentially saying that writers should work for free, while filmmakers can take money for anything.

By threatening lawsuit, Suckling is at least acting like a filmmaker. Francis Ford Coppola surely approves.

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15 comments:

SUAMW said...

I'm here ... tryong to stop that video after watching it for only 15 seconds...

Even after all this time, I get the same reaction to it....

Dapz said...

It's a good point you make, It seems to me that any influence that suckling has gained in the wine Industry comes from his days as a writer. The guy is a decent writer.
I don't know where he got the notion that he has the looks or the charisma to be a video blogger or to be on films. His videos are bizarre. There are just about two people that likes them: himself and his mother!!!

Robert C said...

So let me get this straight, if you are a writer reviewing for a government body it okay to receive renumeration for services but not if you are doing it privately. I understand the Miller/Campo issue but not with Suckling.

jo6pac said...

(Didn't work, nyah nyah.)

I'm not sure because I'm not a writer but shouldn't this have 2 more nyah, nayah. I'm just saying;)

W. Blake Gray said...

Jo: You are advocating the Three Stooges style, whereas I am trying for the more generic schoolyard 8-year-old style.

Joel said...

The Paso Robles vs. SAQ analogy is a distinction without a difference. A critic / writer who's paid to taste specific wines s/he might not otherwise taste, and pen reviews (or make videos) for someone with a financial interest in selling those wines, faces an unavoidable conflict of interest -- regardless of who the paymaster is.

W. Blake Gray said...

Joel: Sorry, but the beginning of your statement doesn't recognize critical writing as a profession.

Nearly every wine a critic tastes is something she wouldn't otherwise taste. The same goes for other critics as well. That's what professionals do.

Donn Rutkoff said...

With the Quebec, does it make a difference that they have a FUTURE financial interest, not present, financial interest? That is, they can decide where to invest AFTER they get the reviews. BTW, I almost gave up on trying to read the captcha stuff. Please, get a better one.

W. Blake Gray said...

Donn: I don't see a problem with that either. The question is, is Suckling pumping up his ratings or tasting notes to sell wine? Prove that, and you have something. But all accounts have it as blind tasting. What's wrong with buying and selling wines your chosen expert recommends? In that case, Suckling is just being a wine consultant, which is also a legitimate profession.

Re comments: I just disabled the captcha. The reason I enabled it in the first place was to discourage spam. If I get too many spam comments, I'll have to deploy captcha again -- unless those comments are clever tasting notes for spam.

Anonymous said...

Suckling seems like a monumental tool.

W. Blake Gray said...

Donn: So I turned off the comment-verification captcha and overnight I got a bunch of spam comments. Had to turn it back on. Sorry.

Spammers suck.

Gail said...

Nice article, Blake. I watched the video to the end, and spit up just a wee bit at the last "I'm here"

Anonymous said...

Suckling is a walking scandal of pompous, dated hair and walking douchebagdom.

Anonymous said...

Seems to me there is a mashup of issues in the Suckling story: I see nothing wrong with writing for dollars. . the problem comes if his name is attached to the reviews/notes/etc that he's paid for. . .THEN he's being paid for his professional authority, not his writing, which is an entirely different matter. THEN his professional authority comes into question when he's writing for those who are NOT paying him. . .that, to me, is the issue. . ?

BTW, LOVE your snark level. . !!

W. Blake Gray said...

Anon: Thanks!

Suckling is ALWAYS writing for people who are paying him. Professional authority should be enhanced by that, not diminished. People respect his taste, so they pay. Not that I see that as incompatible with the conclusion of the prior anonymous comment.