Yesterday I saw the stories about White House pastry chef Bill Yosses quitting — stories with headlines suggesting he was leaving because he was weary of restrictions due to first lady Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity campaign. Some of the headlines seemed political and I decided I skip yet one more incident in American life that becomes part of the 24/7 ideological war.
But it turns out that the headlines didn’t tell the whole story. I discovered this early today, but The Christian Science Monitor’s Peter Grier does a skillfull job in slicing the baloney away:
Did the White House pastry chef quit because he’s tired of Michelle Obama forcing him to cook healthy food? That’s the impression you’d get if you looked at some of the headlines announcing kitchen-meister Bill Yosses’s departure. We won’t name names, but a number of publications have run some variation of “White House pastry chef resigns: ‘I don’t want to demonize cream, butter, sugar and eggs.’ ”
In fact a lot of publications used that easy to use but inaccurate headline and it’s clear some indeed did have axes to grind. See for yourself by STARTING HERE.
And, in fact, GO HERE and see how Salon actually put the real gist of the story.
Quite different from the others, to be sure. MORE from Grier:
OK, that one came direct from The Daily Caller, we admit.
The story goes on to note that Mr. Yosses did begin replacing some dairy-based ingredients in his confections and has used new-style ingredients honey and agave in the Obama White House years. But it also says he was never fully invested in this new policy, and it has the “demonize” quote from above.
But that’s only part of the reason the chef is leaving. And the full story kind of belies the narrative of the “demonize” frame. It’s just one example of how in today’s Twitter-fueled media, themes arise quickly to fit partisan narratives.
That’s because our partisanship demands that the second a possible partisan narrative is spotted, everyone jumps on it and either revs up the snark machine or the outrage machine.
Yosses has been White House pastry chef since 2007. President Obama’s nickname for him is “Crust Master.” He gave a lengthy phone interview to Marian Burros of The New York Times upon the announcement of his departure. Its lead notes that the first lady is indeed the reason – but because she’s piqued his interest in the relationship between food and health.
Yosses said he’s moving to New York after he departs the White House in June and hopes to put together a foundation or some sort of organization that promotes “delicious food as healthy food,” according to the Times. There are also family reasons for the change: His husband of three years, Charlie Jandusay Fabella Jr., lives in New York.
Yosses said that he thinks food knowledge, as in the culinary arts, should be taught in schools. He added that for formal occasions, 20 percent of desserts are still old-style cream-heavy and that he does not want to “demonize” the ingredients that go into those, given their tastiness. But he has worked with Mrs. Obama to add fruit purée and other healthier ingredients that are still appetizing.
“She has done it with humor and goodwill, without preaching,” Yosses told the Times.
Grier notes that not all conservative info outlets jumped on the too-foodPC-Michelle-is-chasing-me-away piewagon.
He points out that TheBlaze, Gelnn Beck’s website, looked at the stories and didn’t feel that was why Yosses was leaving — and that Ms. Obama even inspired him.
But, hey, that doesn’t fit the narrative so let’s not talk about that.
And most websites that ran the original story won’t.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.