Food Blogger Kim O’Donnel Is Leaving WaPo for True/Slant

In March, the Washington Post pulled the plug on Kim O’Donnel’s long-time chat, What’s Cooking. Today, O’Donnel announced on her daily Post food blog that she herself is pulling the plug on A Mighty Appetite, effective on Friday.

The announcement officially ends O’Donnel’s 12-year run at the Post, the last three as the Mighty Appetite blogger.

The veteran food writer, now based in Seattle, won’t be without a home for long, however. On Wednesday, July 15, O’Donnel will launch her new column/blog, “Licking Your Chops,” on the online start-up, True/Slant, an innovative media business in which “Entrepreneurial Journalists” can brand themselves and drum up advertisers to sponsor their work (for which the writers receive a cut of the revenue).

O’Donnel is interested in the branding side of True/Slant more than the self-marketing side. In fact, she doesn’t plan to sell advertisers on her work. She instead will earn a stipend, which she labels a “big pay cut.”

The branding side of the equation is important to O’Donnel as she expands her freelance empire. She’s already hosting a new cooking chat at Culinate.com, and she’s close to signing a deal to publish her debut cookbook, which she describes as a “meatless guide for meat lovers.” It’ll include 52 separate meat-free menus, one for each week, so that “Mr. and Mrs. Sausage [can] take a pass one day a week,” she tells Y&H. It’s based on O’Donnel’s Meatless Monday series, which she launched last fall.

Read More “Food Blogger Kim O’Donnel Is Leaving WaPo for True/Slant” »