Monday 13 March 2017

COMMUNICATION


Back in the Dark Ages, by which I mean around 2008, anyone wanting to appreciate the subtleties of beer had to do it the old-fashioned way.  They first had to find the beer they wanted, then buy it, taste it, and write their own subjective impressions of what it's qualities were.  Looking back, it makes one wonder how the whole beer scene survived.  I mean, such a multitude of opinions.  Who knew what to think?

Thankfully help was at hand.  Noticing a gap in the market, a certain type of person charged through it like a gap on a bar on a Friday night.  These people were known as the "Beer Communicators" and they came from various backgrounds.  Some were bloggers who had overwhelming enthusiasm for how AWESOME the beer scene was and, like, needed to tell everyone about it,  Some were already "media professionals" who had an interest in beer and saw communication about it as a potentially profitable sideline to going to dismal local gigs or rewriting news agency copy.  And some were, undoubtedly, people who neither knew nor cared about beer, but swotted up on it in an effort to gain some sort of career prospects.

What none of the above were much interested in was the quality or veracity of information they were disseminating.  After all, beer is a fairly saturated industry.  One more sale is one fewer sale for someone else.   So based on whether they liked the beer itself or the people behind it, they talked their favourites up to the expense of others who, in their opinion, were lesser regarded.

And this is why they were called "Communicators" rather than "Journalists".  Journalists ask questions because, in most cases, they seek the truth and wish to make that truth known.  A Communicator is merely someone who spreads the word, true or not, because they're an inherent part of the industry.  If the industry is "done down", then their potential revenue stream is likely to be reduced.

In Beer Communication, there is no Bad News. BEER PEOPLE ARE GOOD PEOPLE, and making money and taking market share is a lesser concern, despite such an ideology going against all known rules of good business..  If, like, everyone is good to each other, then beer (or more to the point, the beer being promoted) will become so wonderful, the industry will grow forever.

Of course, the said Awesome Breweries are gradually being taken over by larger concerns, so the Communicators have to realign themselves to the new reality.  Watching them do this is one of the few amusing things left in the beer world.  But as long as the freebies and access keep coming, everything stays Awesome and inconvenient truths are glossed over.

Some have said they should drop the Journalistic pretensions and just come out as Public Relations people. But that wouldn't be, like, awesome, man.

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