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Does Martha Stewart owe food, lifestyle bloggers an apology?

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Oh no she didn’t!

Martha Stewart created an online uproar when she gave the back of her hand to food and lifestyle bloggers, dismissing their work and saying “they are not the experts.”

Now, the blogosphere is responding in kind -- and demanding an apology.

“Who are these bloggers?” Martha said during a video interview with Bloomberg TV, her voice dripping with derision. She continued:

“They’re not trained editors and writers at Vogue magazine. I mean, there are bloggers writing recipes that aren’t tested, that aren’t necessarily very good or are copies of everything that really good editors have created and done. Bloggers create kind of a popularity. But they are not the experts and we have to understand that.” (She also took what many perceive to be a dig at Gwyneth Paltrow when she said, among other things, “[Gwyneth] wants to be a lifestyle arbiter.... I think I started this whole category of lifestyle.”)

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Now, we will admit that there are some renegade bloggers out there, but it’s the self-correcting law of the blogosphere that know-nothing bloggers get all the influence they deserve. And we share Martha’s affinity for recipe testing since the L.A. Times Test Kitchen obsessively tests and retests all its recipes before publication.

But, seriously, Martha?

No caveat for bloggers who are, indeed, experts in food, fashion and lifestyle?

No caveat for the legion of food bloggers who take great care in testing and crafting recipes to make sure they’re just as good as a recipe out of Martha Stewart’s kitchen? (One food blog, for example, that has never, ever let us down? Simply Recipes.)

We expect more nuance from you, Martha.

The remarks are especially surprising given that food and lifestyle bloggers make up one of Martha’s core constituencies.

True, food bloggers might not be her core voting bloc -- that likely belongs to civilian women and men who try to bring a little bit of Martha’s magic into their everyday lives.

But food and lifestyle bloggers help endlessly to promote Martha by using their platforms to make her recipes and crafts -- such as Halloween cupcakes accented with shards of broken “glass” or marzipan pumpkin petits fours in the shape of skulls and coffins -- and then sharing them with their blog’s readers.

The reaction is exactly what you’d expect it to be in the online blogging world.

“So Martha Stewart insulted an army of craft, party & food bloggers...not cool Martha...not cool at all,” Tweeted @MariaLopezDavis

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Online food personality Vicki Winters took to video to respond to Martha, demanding an apology and calling her a hypocrite for making such comments in the wake of Martha’s 2012 appearance at a BlogHer conference.

And here’s an open letter that BlogHer posted in regard to the controversy.

What do you think? Should Martha apologize? Or do you agree with her?

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