Media

DNAInfo Debuts, Immediately Starts Talking Eating Meat, Brains

The Chicago edition of New York’s DNAInfo is a new attempt to bring hyperlocal journalism to the digital age. Or some such thing; if you want to get caught up in those kinds of debates, which have too often consumed such ventures in navel-gazing rather than serving readers, go here. It’s a new site, it has some good food stuff on it, that’s what you need to know as a reader. Most of the talk so far has focused on this piece about underground bacon makers, which, frankly, we think is a little less than meets the eye (these guys aren’t that much closer to having a real business than lots of home charcuterists we know, trading their wares on the underground circuit). But there are a number of good stories there already in the Our Interesting City of Quirky Old Joints genre, like this one on Gepperth’s Meat Market or this one on a diner favored by CTA personnel. And the standout, so far, is this one on eating brains, which goes into delightfully grisly detail. That said, the need to fit a newspaper-style format— those aphasic one sentence paragraphs, the focus on verifiable facts more than the color that really brings a story to life— is maybe holding the writing back a little. But it’s new (and despite the claims in the Reader piece, many of the writers seem to be pretty new, too) so give it time— and bookmark it.

DNAInfo Debuts, Immediately Starts Talking Eating Meat, Brains