It’s Been A Little Quiet Around Here

The James Beard Foundation Media Awards nomination announcement definitely lacked fanfare this year.

The James Beard Foundation Media Award nominations were announced this morning, but if you weren’t paying attention, you may not have even noticed. Unlike prior years, the announcement wasn’t broadcast on a live stream, and the foundation’s social media accounts didn’t post in real time, tagging the nominees in each of the 40 categories. I know many food media folks were waiting with baited breath for this morning’s updates, and if they were looking for the same level of pomp and circumstance as previous years, they’re still waiting.

In 2018, I received my first, and only (at least so far), James Beard Foundation Media Award nomination for a piece I wrote on this very blog. That day changed my life. It offered me a level of notoriety, and I will forever be known as a James Beard Award nominee. Food writing is my super duper, barely visible, very far off to the side hustle, and this designation has opened doors that may have forever remained shut to me — giving me the opportunity to write for publications such as Food & Wine, Saveur, Plate Magazine, Garden & Gun, and many others.

(It also gave me an extreme case of imposter syndrome, but that’s a story for another day.)

While the awards ceremony was incredible, it’s nomination morning that sticks out in my mind. I got a Twitter notification (because I am *too* online), had to read the tweet three times just to make sure I wasn’t imagining things, and then did a happy dance at my cubicle (working the 9-to-5, not food writing job that I do to pay my bills).

I spent the rest of the day contacting friends and family, reading pieces from the other nominees, and thinking about whether or not I had anything in my closet to wear to the ceremony (I did not). I didn’t get another minute of work done that day, and I have no regrets.

The subdued nature of this year’s media awards is puzzling. The chef and restaurant nominations were announced on March 29 during a live broadcast, and the America’s Classic winners were each highlighted in a dedicated tweet from the foundation’s Twitter account on February 22. For the media award nominations, there was only a single notification of congratulations — after the nominees were announced and posted on the James Beard Foundation website. If you’re lucky enough to subscribe to their newsletter, then you would have gotten an email alert afterwards as well.

The James Beard Foundation has also endured a fair amount of criticism about the whiteness and maleness of the chefs who often received the organization’s accolades, leading to the cancellation of the 2020 chef/restaurant awards and an overhaul of the foundation’s values and nomination processes. Additionally, applying for consideration costs money ($75 a pop, though waivers can be requested), and if you want to submit a print book, you have to ship eight copies on your own dime. This represents a barrier to entry that some people cannot, or choose not to, overcome. I know plenty of food writers who have tapped out, refusing to nominate themselves or their work because of these issues, and I respect that stance.

Perhaps the foundation is avoiding Twitter for the same reasons why I internally struggle every time I log onto the platform. And that’s totally fine. And livestreaming is expensive; I get that. But the 2023 James Beard Foundation Media Award nominees deserve to be honored with the same verve as the chef and restaurant nominees and the media nominees of years past.

Congratulations to all of today’s nominees! Whether this morning marked your first or ninth nomination, I hope you are celebrating and you feel at least 1/10th of the giddiness that I did back in 2018 — even if the James Beard Foundation is being a bit quiet on their end.

And I’ll be celebrating right along with you. But it will have to wait until after 5 p.m. I didn’t receive a nomination this morning, and now, I have to get back to work.