Is this the way they say the future’s meant to feel?

Andy Warhol, in addition to painting soup cans and movie stars, and making extremely long films, and getting shot, and generally being Andy Warhol for a living, was nominally the manager of the Velvet Underground in their early days. However, it’s probably fair to say that his duty of care to the degenerate art rockers was no more hands-on than his attitude to production of his art (which, once he’d had the idea, was often undertaken by his acolytes). In one interview around that time (1967-ish), he admitted that the band members didn’t actually get paid for their labours. “But how do they eat?” asked the journalist, aghast. “Um, well, they go to a lot of parties,” deadpanned Andy.

This came to mind a few days ago, when a marketing guy from one of the big riverside hotels in Bangkok asked me if, in my sometime capacity as a food journalist, I’d like to come over and sample the delights of the Italian restaurant there. I said I’d be delighted, but I wasn’t sure whether the usual outlets for my prandial witterings would be able to find space any time soon. “No problem,” he said. “If you could just give it a mention on your blog, that would be great.”

It all falls into place: Warhol had unwittingly created the model for journalism in the 21st century. Readers don’t want to pay for journalism, and advertisers are increasingly unwilling to subsidise it. The only way a hack without a private income can survive is on freebies, scraps from capitalism’s table (almost literally, in the case of food writing).

Two problems present themselves here. The first is that it gives an unfair advantage to those writers who specialise in the necessities of life, such as food and shelter and clothing. I have an image of emaciated literary bloggers desperately attempting to trade in their review copies with their foodie colleagues in the hope of getting a decent meal for the first time that week. That said, perhaps it might be a good idea if media were to focus on what people need more than what they can be persuaded to desire. [Thinks: Damn, does that mean nobody will want to send me free books any more?]

The other potential glitch is that the hacks might feel obliged to say only nice things about the products they’re being offered, since the alternative is starvation. But this has always been a problem under the old system, as publishers try to keep advertisers sweet, while also maintaining their hacks’ delusions that they’re morally pure seekers after truth, rather than enslaved rearrangers of the cultural slush. So it’s fortunate for me that the meal was most enjoyable (especially the whipped salt cod with avocado), and I have no hesitation in suggesting that Giorgio’s at the Royal Orchid Sheraton is very good and you should all go there, provided you tell them I sent you.