Just as in other spheres of society, the Web has revolutionized the food world. Looking for a recipe? Just Google a few ingredients you have in your fridge and a recipe will pop up. Want to learn about a new restaurant? Find reviews from professional dining critics as well as customers on the Internet.

But there are also pitfalls in this unregulated cyberspace. And the online food world seems to be particularly vulnerable to manipulation.

Specific restaurants, for example, can be defenseless to anonymous attacks on rating sites like Yelp or Citysearch, but even successful publications, with readily available platforms and wide audiences can have trouble reacting to distorted or fabricated information on the Internet.

A few weeks ago, wine and food writer Robin Goldstein announced that his Milan, Italy, restaurant, Osteria L'Intrepido, had won a Wine Spectator Award of Excellence. The catch? Osteria L'Intrepido didn't exist.

He created the hoax to raise questions about the significance of this award bestowed by Wine Spectator, a popular wine magazine that covers the wine world and rates wines through blind tastings. Every year, the magazine invites restaurants to apply for their awards (with a $250 entry fee), which rates restaurants based on their wine list and for the top award, their service. This year, 3,254 restaurants received the Award of Excellence, the lowest of three levels of awards. Seventy-three restaurants in 14 countries received the Grand Award, the highest level.

(Eleven restaurants in Pittsburgh received the Award of Excellence this year, but no Pittsburgh restaurant has qualified for a Best of Award of Excellence -- the second tier -- or a Grand Award.)

The hoax generated a lot of media attention. Mr. Goldstein created a Web site for the restaurant, secured a phone number and created an e-mail account. He also posted a few comments about it on the food Internet message board Chowhound. Once the restaurant was on the Internet, why would anyone doubt its existence?

Still, Wine Spectator should have known better. Although the editors should never have given out the award without speaking to someone on the phone about the restaurant, I don't think that this inaction invalidates all of the magazine's awards.

Mr. Goldstein is not the first reporter to write about how easy it is to achieve the lowest level of this award. Amanda Hesser has written about it in the New York Times as well as recently by Elizabeth Downer in the Post-Gazette's wine column. But the hoax has drawn far more attention.

Community journalists such as Mr. Goldstein don't always hold themselves to the same standards of ethics as the mainstream media. Mr. Goldstein clearly thought that he was conducting an experiment, more than a balanced investigation.

"I am ... disappointed at how many people jumped on the 'trash WS' bandwagon before both sides of the story had been told," wrote James Molesworth, a senior editor at Wine Spectator, following a rebuttal of the facts.

In another recent incident, a woman who identified herself as Melissa Ortiz posted a recipe on her blog, Alosha's Kitchen, that she said had been adapted from a Cook's Country magazine, which is part of the Cook's Illustrated family.

That recipe was later replaced by a post that said a Cook's Illustrated public relations representative had e-mailed her and told her to remove the recipe. Ortiz then posted a series of e-mails in which someone identified as Deborah Broide writes that Ms. Ortiz didn't have permission to post the recipe, that the recipe is copyrighted (inaccurate) and that Cook's Illustrated doesn't allow recipe modifications because its recipes are "perfect" (not true, according to its official policy).

This exchange raised interesting questions about the ownership of recipes and whether a recipe can ever be perfect. But when I called Deborah Broide, who is the public relations representative for Cook's Illustrated and its related publications, she told me she didn't know anything about the postings on Alosha's Kitchen and had never sent the e-mails.

When I contacted Ms. Ortiz about the postings she wrote, "At this point, I think I'd rather not continue to talk about it at all. You can read my follow-up ... But to be honest, I just want to be done with it and go back to posting about food."

It is unclear who, if anyone, is lying about her role in this exchange. Unfortunately, based on the response to the posts on many blogs and message boards, most people who read them took the information at face value. Many readers blasted Cook's Illustrated, yet no one investigated the matter to see if it was true.

Magazines such as Wine Spectator and Cook's Illustrated should remember that we have entered an era when readers are more likely to question those in positions of authority, especially when that authority is used to giving out awards that also bring in revenue (this year's Wine Spectator awards brought in approximately $1 million).

Bloggers aren't wrong to question the claims and purposes of these magazines. But readers of blogs, posting boards and other Internet sources need to review the news and rumors with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Sure, the blogs are free and you have to pay for the magazines, but as you'll discover, there still is a lot of value in these established publications.