New York Times Launches Blog by Frank Bruni

Posted on February 20, 2006

The New York Times has launched a blog called the Diner's Journal for Frank Bruni, their restaurant critic. Bruni has also covered politics for the Times and he is the author of a bestselling book about George W. Bush called Ambling into History. With the blog Bruni says he will be able to offer more information about the many restaurants he visits -- he does not have room to explain or describe everything in his weekly restaurant review column.

I spend an insane, glorious amount of time in restaurants. And of course I see and taste more than I get to recount within the confines of weekly Dining section reviews, each based on multiple visits to a given restaurant, each boiled down to about 1,000 words from hours and hours of observation and tens of thousands of calories.
This new blog is an attempt to capture and share more of my notes from the field. To provide, in something closer to real time, a sense of what's being served in the city's newest, oldest, most delightful and most frustrating restaurants and of how those restaurants are serving it. To flag trends and, less often and more selectively, flog underachievers. To report moments of real significance and incidents that just happened to be interesting. To keep a journal, and to keep the tone of that journal light, casual, accessible.

Eater has a post about the first day of Bruni's Blog. Gawker commented on Bruni's post about Hooters.

Bruni's Diners Journal is at least the fourth blog from the Times. So far they also offer the The Carpetbagger, The Walk-Through and The Opinionator. However, the Opinionator can only be read by TimesSelect subscribers so that leaves just three that are open to everyone.