One Less Wine Critic: The LA Times Gives Up On Wine

In the throes of economic problems, the Los Angeles Times has decided to drop its long-time wine column. A portent for others? See the article on Jancis Robinson's pages at http://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/20080718_5

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Rogov

That's a shame. I got to meet LA Times writer, Dan Berger, on a couple of occasions. The most memorable was my 1st time as a wine judge. I was on his panel with 2 other people, he saw I was nervous and really helped me out (I wonder if he realized I was shaking because I was on a panel with him). He told me to trust myself and not be afraid to score a wine too high or low. In the 1st round I had to give my scores first (no medal, bronze, silver and gold) and was literally shaking. Our scores were perfect matches and the rest is history.

I enjoyed Dan Berger's columns when I read them, and thanks to the Internet I could read them from time to time.
We will see this happening more and more, especially as print copies of newspapers lose ground to the Internet and magazines fail to sustain their circulation numbers.
It's happened here - New Zealander Bob Campbell MW had an extensive wine section in a magazine called "New Zealand Home and Entertaining". The magazine was renamed "Home New Zealand' and all the wine content, and presumably the 'entertainment' content, disappeared.
Both major Sunday papers no longer have wine columns either - the 'Herald on Sunday' dropping its column about three years ago and the 'Sunday Star Times' dropping its column earlier this year.