Categories: Media Moves

Frankie Flack: Dear biz writers, your bourbon coverage sucks

Most of my issues with business journals are relatively minor. Sure: I’d like to see broader coverage of my clients. I’d like to see a little more variety in story structure. But it’s no big deal. But I do have a major beef. You guys are messing with my bourbon, and you need to knock it off.

You’d have to be living under a rock (or a teetotaler) not to have notices the headlines about the great “whiskey shortage” of 2014. Demand is outstripping supply, and — if you believe the press — our liquor stores will soon look like barren, Soviet-era groceries.

Now, I was strolling through the aisles of my local spirit shop yesterday and saw no dearth of the brown stuff. So where’d this notion come from? Partially from Big Bourbon: most of the coverage lately came after the Buffalo Trace distillery put out this release about “inventory shortages” and used the phrase “rolling blackouts” to describe distribution plans. And the media went ape.

That news get reported uncritically. USA Today picked up a story from Nashville and screamed that a “Whiskey Shortage Looms.” the International Business Times called it a “Whiskey Crisis.” The smart guys at Vox were concerned enough that they called for the creation of “whiskey futures” to deal with the shortage.

The idea of whiskey futures, as needless as it actually is, makes a lot more sense that a lot of the other advice handed out. Esquire suggested hoarding the stuff (“buy as much as you can afford“). The Motley Fool was also on the record as suggesting people begin panic-buying (actual headline: “Start Hoarding Whiskey, a Shortage is Coming.”) Philadelphia magazine said the same: “begin hoarding” (and then, for good measure and in italics, “immediately.”).

This is terrible advice and terrible journalism. It’s like suggesting a run on the bank at the slightest hint of insolvency. If the financial press had hyperventilated like that in 2008, we’d all probably be living under tarps and cooking Ramen noodles over our hobo-style campfires.

For one, there’s plenty of bourbon on the shelves. For two, I haven’t seen any suggestion of rising prices, which is the economic indicator that things are running off the rails.

I don’t mean to paint all journalists covering the bourbon biz with the same stroke. Props to NBC for dropping econ 101 on its readers (“In classic economics, a shortage occurs when the price of an item is set below its fair market value and supplies across an entire category run out. That’s not what’s happening here.) And it’s worth reading the Washington Post from a year ago, during an earlier iteration of the story, on why distributors won’t just raise prices and be done with it.

In short, there are some real economic issues at play here. It’s an interesting story. It’s just not being told very well (in general). So here’s my pledge to you: as long as overblown press releases about “rolling blackouts” lead to reporting calling on drinkers to stockpile premium hooch, I’ll do my part and just boycott bourbon (and bourbon journalism) altogether. I hope you’ll do the same.

And don’t worry: you’ll still find me at the bar, tie askew, quaffing the good stuff: Scotch.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.

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View Comments

Lance Williams says:
June 24, 2014 at 9:50 pm
Since you posted a link to our story from Nashville, i guess I'll speak out. I'd encourage you to re-read our story, and look for signs of panic in that story. No mentions of price hikes or calls for hoarding ...
Our was a story talking about how distillers (like Jack Daniel's), for instance, and investing millions to meet growing demand and how craft distillers are struggling to get the raw materials (such as white oak barrels) they need to keep pace, too.
Ours was more of an industry story than a consumer panic story.
Just a reminder to look past the headlines and take the entire story as a whole.