The North Coast deserves to read a Mouth of the Columbia who is a true professional journalist. A first year journalism major learns things that the new Mouth seems to have never learned. In the May 14 Coast Weekend, the new Mouth reviewed our restaurant, Drina Daisy, in a less than professional manner (“Drina Daisy Traditional Bosnian home cooking with a bevy of confounding caveats”).

A professional journalist considers their source and the complete context. Reporting an eavesdropped conversation with other customers is questionable, but failing to report that their conceived complaint was answered to their satisfaction is unprofessional.

A professional journalist is culturally sensitive and respectful of other cultures. Disparaging menu items, the lamb, the baklava, and the zeljancia (spinach pie) — that are as good or better than what one would find in a typical restaurant in Bosnia — is unprofessional.

A professional journalist sticks to the things they know. In our coastal community businesses sometimes get caught unprepared for occasional unanticipated surges of demand. See if you can find anywhere a professional waiter/waitress that will claim that they can serve 25 people on 10 tables with optimal attentiveness. Suggesting that our “systems were simply inefficient” and that “even a food service novice could streamline them in no time” is unprofessional.

A professional journalist does their homework and seeks to balance their writing in the context of what other professional journalists have written about the same thing. Drina Daisy has been very favorably reviewed in The New York Times, The Seattle Times (feature article), The Oregonian, Willamette Week (multiple favorable mentions in their yearly restaurant guide), Portland Monthly (twice), Northwest Palate, and was even given high marks, by Oregon’s “Godfather of Food” Gerry Frank.

All of the Coast Weekend’s previous Mouths rated us highly. Failing to temper an opinion in the context of so much professional insight is unprofessional.

Mothers are a good source of wisdom for life. My mother taught me, “If you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything at all.” I will adapt this to The Daily Astorian’s Coast Weekend, “If you don’t have anything good to say, shut your Mouth.”

Ken Bendickson

Astoria