Food journalism is a field of journalism that focuses on news and current events related to food, its production and culture of producing and consuming that food. Typically food journalism includes a scope broader than the work of food critics who analyze restaurants and food products, and is similar to, and sometimes treated as a sub-genre of food writing, which documents the experience and history of food.[1]
Food journalism often explores the impact of current events on food, such as how the Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the food industry, or larger issues, such as impacts of climate change on food production.[2] Increasingly these themes overlap with public health journalism, political journalism and economic journalism.[3] This expands on themes traditional to food criticism which has tended to focus on fine dining, and other kinds of food writing such as cookbook writing.[4] These themes are similar to the themes covered in agricultural journalism, which focuses on the agriculture industry for agricultural audiences.
The contemporary field of food journalism grew in the mid-20th century, especially as issues like food rationing during and after World War II.[5] In the United States, the Association of Food Journalists provides professional standards and a code of ethics.[6]