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Topic: A travel writer's first press trip
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| chucho | Posted – 7/25/2007 10:49:50 AM | show profile Oops, that last graph should have been the second graph and it was addressed to BB. Yes, it is possible to re-sell. (Actually it was rarely ever possible to "re-sell" the exact same article. It has always and continues to be the case that you must tweak and recast each version of a story. But, yes, it is still possible to "re-sell" to various pubs.) |
| Sam Waynewright | Posted – 7/25/2007 1:17:46 PM | show profile travel writing press trips The whole sorry mess that is travel writing today could be at least partly cleaned up if publishers did what is routinely done in the UK and in much of Europe. Travel writers, both freelance and those on staff, for both newspapers & glossy travel magazines, take select press trips. And then at the end of their story there is a note making it very clear that ?Writer Mark Twain was sent to South Africa by SAA and stayed at the X hotel chain.? This way, the readers themselves can decide if the writer has been bought. And if you think that this compromises the story, fair enough, you have a right to your opinion. But in fact most of these stories are far more hard hitting that the fluffy pap that passes off for travel writing in this country, under the guise of objectivity. So why are US publishers so extremely wary of doing this? Because it would then fully reveal the whole sorry state of travel writing as its exists today. The cozy link between the industry and the media that covers it. As for Belinda, you are selling courses on travel writing, correct? So, clearly, you have a personal motive here, indeed a financial incentive, to claim that travel writing is easy and that you can make both make a living at it and produce genuine journalism. And are you actually charging young people for the following kind of information, that ?if an advertising rep appears on the editorial department's floor of the building, he or she is escorted away by a guard, with a stern warning, verbally and written, from the ad director never to bother Editorial again.? I?d be laughing at this, if it wasn?t such an absolutely absurd thing to say. I?m guessing that you must be in your late 50s, or have been living in a cave for decades, because that ?editorial wall? you came down years ago in the travel section. Newspapers today are in a death spiral; in an effort to stay afloat they are sharply cutting staff, cutting back on salaries, reducing page numbers, and slicing off weekend magazines & book review sections like crazy, all across the country. (Free) reader input is now being actively sought (?We want to hear from you!?) from basically every section in newspapers, barring the hard news pages. As for travel sections, no ad man has to even lean on an editor. These people aren?t fools. Editors well know that if there are not enough ads to support their section, their sections will be reduced or chopped out completely, and their jobs are very much on the line. There?s NO threat from the ad department, there doesn?t need to be. It?s perfectly understood by everyone working on newspapers today. (And yes, I work as a staff editor on newspapers, too, yada, yada? so I know this from the inside). If you?re actually putting on some type of ?travel writing course? and telling young people that travel writing today is just another form of straight reporting, you?re doing them a great disservice. If fact, you?re being dishonest with them. Be truthful with them. Tell them the reality: that TW is highly promotional, and that if they expect to place stories that they will have to mostly focus on the very positive, and that if they touch on anything seriously unattractive (crime, air pollution, health risks, or details that would be injurious to advertisers, that these para will likely be cut out without a second's reflection. Sam |
| BBelinda | Posted – 7/25/2007 2:54:27 PM | show profile >>Who says it's no longer possible? Sam Quinones (great reporter, has done stuff for Frontline, many national papers, and has written two books on Mexico) not too long ago recommended multiple sales as almost necessary for freelancers' survival. One example he gave me was when he covered the immensely popular band Tigres del Norte. << Chucho, Sam and I were discussing newspaper travel writing, as this thread is about travel writing. What did *you* think? Covering Los Tigres is not travel writing. |
| BBelinda | Posted – 7/25/2007 2:55:48 PM | show profile >>Who says it's no longer possible? Sam Quinones (great reporter, has done stuff for Frontline, many national papers, and has written two books on Mexico) not too long ago recommended multiple sales as almost necessary for freelancers' survival. One example he gave me was when he covered the immensely popular band Tigres del Norte. << Chucho, Sam and I were discussing newspaper travel writing, as this thread is about travel writing. What did *you* think? Covering Los Tigres is not travel writing. |
| BBelinda | Posted – 7/25/2007 3:04:41 PM | show profile >>As for Belinda, you are selling courses on travel writing, correct? So, clearly, you have a personal motive here, indeed a financial incentive, to claim that travel writing is easy and that you can make both make a living at it and produce genuine journalism.<< Are you kidding? I don't sell courses on travel writing. Where did you cook up this idea? I'm laughing so freakin' hard, I can hardly stay in my chair to type this! You know what, Sam? You're so overloaded with hard-packed assumptions that its a waste of time talking with you. Journalists don't operate on assumptions, and so it appears you're not what you say you are. I'm real happy fer ya that you've sold to big-ass papers on both coasts and know all about the newspaper bidness despite never having worked in it, except for the stories you peddled. But I have a deadline project due today, and time is so precious that I don't have enough to be conversing bullshit artists on baloney-stuffed threads. You'll carry on fine without me -- and I do mean carry on. |
| Sam Waynewright | Posted – 7/25/2007 3:50:11 PM | show profile travel writing press trips " and time is so precious that I don't have enough to be conversing" (So that's why you have time to post nearly 70 posts! A busy lady). As for you teaching travel writing, I did NOT assume this, you told us, dear. Re-read you own posts. This is what you said: "and as a freelancer I still practice what I teach." A Feudian slip? Yeah right. Don't go away mad, just go away.... but before you do, why not take up my challenge, and find me one or two travel stories which mention non-happy things that recently ran anywhere in a major newspaper or mag? Perhaps one of your own pearls? Can't do it can you. Proves my point. |
| daytonlewis | Posted – 7/28/2007 8:28:01 PM | show profile | email poster A travel writer's first press trip Hi everyone. I've been reading with interest the line of thought on this topic. It was on my blog My Year of Getting Published that Seafarer published what I considered an interesting description of how she was offered a press trip and how it played out. It wasn't meant to be a post about the ethics of taking a press trip - it was simply one persons experience with being offered a trip. And as such was well written and informative. Obviously many of you have strong views on press trips and the ethics of them. And equally obvious is that you are not afraid to put you view across, even if means slamming others along the way. So I have a proposition for anyone who responded to this forum post. I would like to offer you the opportunity to be a guest blogger on my blog, writing about the ethics of press trips. I'm sure that my readers would be more than interested in hearing another point of view. What do you say.. anyone willing to take on a challenge.. Cheers, Kiwiwriter |
| teacher | Posted – 7/29/2007 8:21:18 AM | show profile Into the shark tank.... I didn't know so many people who call themselves writers can't read. Did you read the same post I did?(Seafarer's). Did you notice the arena it was written in? There are high horses and then there are people who are pompous bleeps. Speaking of ethics, how can you believe that retooling an article for resale is ethical? You sold your article to someone. Changing a "the" to an "an" is changing it's color - but it's still the same article. Seafarers comments were just quick observations of her first press trip. Nothing more. So stop trying to make it more than it was - just to get a rise out of people. |
| chucho | Posted – 7/29/2007 9:51:27 AM | show profile Belinda, You said: >> You were wise to quit writing for newspapers. The ROI worked when it was possible to make multiple sales, but not anymore. << Your previous post above that wasn't about travel writing, it was about the interaction of Advertising and Editorial, so it wasn't hard for me to assume the statement above was about "re-selling" in general. And it doesn't matter, perhaps the example I cited wasn't travel writing but I know a handful of writers who do re-sell travel pieces, too. For example, people who update travel books often write spin-offs for airline mags, newspapers and other publications (chamber pubs, consumer mags, or even highly paid advertorials for major US consumer mags -- I got $3.50 a word once doing something like that). It is very much still possible to make multiple sales whether it's travel writing or not. And your statement that there's this incredibly impassable firewall between Advertising and Editorial, with guards escort Ad people out of the Editorial Dept. is total bullocks. I've never seen that. Sure, the ad dept generally stays away, but the "synergies" that go on don't require a whole lot of direct collaboration between the two departments (although there's plenty of that going on at any publication that sends writers on junkets -- they send them on junkets per invitation of a lucrative advertising client, usually an airline or tourism board). And I don't buy the Advertising/Editorial firewall argument -- that was the same horse shit these financial services companies were saying during the 90s bubble -- that their analysts shilling stocks (on MSNBC) were completely separate from the underwriters at the same company earning commissions on selling the same stocks. That turned out to be a pretty flimsy firewall in a lot of cases. The best publications make it clear when they're shilling or when they're writing may have conflicts of interest (objectivity vs. selling hotel rooms). I like Sam's observation that pubs should just fess up to it, then move forward. I think to some degree reputable newspaper do this. You can usually tell when the NYT is doing "advertorial" travel writing. If the readers know what's going on, then they can determine for themselves if the article has merit. I have observed that readers have a fairly high tolerance for this stuff, so long as they're in the loop about it and they don't feel like the pub is playing a shell game (or discover this after it comes to light). |
| BBelinda | Posted – 7/29/2007 6:08:56 PM | show profile Basta! Enough already! You're all officially on my "do not call" list! ;-) No harm, no foul. This forum is mostly entertainment, after all. Yesterday, a friend and I entertained ourselves with this thread as illustration while discussing some of the so-called colleagues we wish we never met in our businesses. But who knows? You're probably all really sweet people in real life. I'd love to answer the question about my background, but it wouldn't be appreciated in this thread as something that required a lot of hard work to achieve. I will tell you, though, that I freelance full time, not exclusively travel (for my first 10 years of part-time freelancing, I wrote only travel). When I write travel it is by assignment, not by pitch letter or on spec, with whichever publication covering all expenses at full price, no freebies or discounts allowed or sought. On the side, I mentor writers and occasionally teach magazine writing, with travel writing as part of the course. I run my business seriously, taking MB "coffee breaks," and am nobody's example of a struggling freelancer. None of which has anything to do with this thread, but I hope it makes you happy to have something of an answer. I really do wish everybody the best of luck at whatever you do professionally, and the very worst of luck at holding fast to preconceptions about people and myths about this business. Good things come to those who expect them. |
