Food Safety News has become for many the daily one-stop shop for all things food safety.  With our bureaus in Washington D.C., Denver and Seattle, contributing authors from around the world, and a growing cadre of freelance journalists, FSN now has more than 4,000 subscribers and, on average, 120,000 visits to the site monthly.  But, as publisher (a.k.a., the not evil Rupert Murdoch), I have bigger dreams for FSN.

True, we have several decades of experience (and one Pulitzer) with Dan, Mary, Ross, Gretchen, Cookson, et. al., and Helena has been described as the Lois Lane of food safety reporting.  But, we can do even better.

We are in the process of making it even clearer to readers that there is distance between the Marler Clark law firm and me and Food Safety News.  Although, I have exerted no control over content (other than contributing my weekly Publisher’s Platform) on FSN, I think we can make the wall clearer to readers, and we will.  We will also be increasing our freelance budget to help with the day-to-day reporting.  The biggest change will be the addition of a new investigative reporter (as yet unnamed).  This “newbie” will complement the already great work being done by Dan and Helena, and the superior editing by Mary.

To accomplish the above, we will be making some changes to the design of the site.  We will be losing a few of the blog and news feed boxes to make room for more FSN content, including more photos and video.  We will also be doing more outreach to universities, consumer groups, government and food producers – large and small – for more commentary.

Finally, we are considering some alternative methods of financial support at FSN, other than direct donations from Marler Clark.  Whether it is some form of paid subscription or ads, the goal is to better what we are doing and lessen FSN’s dependence on “those damn trial lawyers.”

Change is good. I would love your thoughts.