Why travel writers rarely tell the truth
News that an American travel writer has launched a website where fellow journalists can finally tell the truth about bad experiences should see plenty of traffic, but I doubt much of it will come from Australia.
The reason? Few if any media companies here are prepared to pay for journalists to travel independently, so they are forced to rely on the generosity of tourist boards, wholesalers, cruiseliners and airlines. This leaves them hopelessly compromised – it’s very hard to write too critically about your latest freebie when you know the company who hosted you will read the piece, and possibly advertise alongside it.
Simon Calder, senior travel editor for the Independent newspaper in the UK, is known as “the man who pays his way”, one of a rare breed who never accepts a free trip, even though his paper is one of the least-resourced in the country.
According to his website: “The cheaper you travel, the closer you get to the soul of a place… I don’t accept free transport or accommodation from the travel trade. As a result of this somewhat curious and eccentric policy, I tend to meet a lot of very interesting folk. The people with the best stories to tell live life in the cheap seats.”
Try telling that to your average, poorly paid hack when an invitation to enjoy a free Silversea cruise hits their desk. I’ve seen two journalists literally fighting over a press place on the last concorde flight (I won, for the record).
The problem is this ultimately cheats the readers, who have a right to expect an independent critique of a product they, unlike the writer, will have to shell out their hard-earned cash for. And if travel writers can’t provide it, they’ll simply hit the net and get what they need from their fellow consumers.
In the age of user-generated content, freeloaders are no longer king.
By Martin Lane · June 17th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Comments
17 Jun 09
1:35 pm
newspaper travel sections that gush about how every destination is lovely, TV travel shows like Getaway and thinly disguised travel websites flogging products for a commission are some of the reasons that prompted me to setup http://www.roadlesstravelled.com.au
Sure no one’s paying for my trips so I can’t publish about a new location every day
But at least the weekly travel articles by myself or my friends are honest and treat the reader with respect because we “tell it like it is”
17 Jun 09
1:45 pm
Hmmm. Its not just the travel writers.
17 Jun 09
2:14 pm
What, then, if media companies accepted that their destinations aren’t perfect and welcomed honest appraisals?
The consumer wins because what positive coverage the destination receives will be heartfelt, the destination wins because they find out what bothers their target market (and gives them an opportunity to rectify and/or address the issue) and the media company wins because they haven’t placed their media contacts in a compromising position.
17 Jun 09
7:38 pm
So have Silversea Cruises been in touch to offer you a jaunt yet, Martin?
17 Jun 09
9:03 pm
Not yet. I would say no, of course.
Martin, Thumbrella
17 Jun 09
10:24 pm
I would say Simon Calder is most definitely the exception, and not the rule in the UK. And he’s certainly the lone Independent writer not taking freebies. The only other UK example I can think of is Conde Nast Traveller.
Certainly none of my managing editors on a UK travel mag said no to the freebies that allowed their writers to be out on the road so frequently (and also allowed their budgets to remain in an almost respectable state).
I’m sure had Martin been in charge, a much more principled policy would have been in place…
18 Jun 09
2:24 am
Agreed! Is anyone NOT sick and tired of gushing praise for every destination that a newspaper travel journo is sent to?
There’s also a worriesome trend happening among newspaper travel bloggers. The SMH used to have a travel blog but the author refused to disclose to readers that his trips were junkets.
I think we’re now seeing the same thing with the SMH’s ‘Beauty Beat’ blog, where SMH blogger Natasha Hughes has for the past week been raving about the spa in the Shangri-La singapore and another Shangri-La owned ‘spas village’ resort in Borneo (see http://blogs.smh.com.au/lifestyle/beautybeat/).
Nowhere does Ms Hughes mention if her trip is a junket from Shangri-La, despite this being required by Fairfax policy; and despite my leaving two comments on her blog asking her to clarify this important issue, she has refused to publish them appear on the blog.
So what happened to Fairfax policy, journalistic standards and ethics, transparency and disclosure?
This is DEFINITELY worth looking into, Thumbrella!
18 Jun 09
8:04 am
This is absolutely the joy of the new Internet though – where sites such as Tumbrella, http://everything-everywhere.com, http://travelgeneration.com/blog and so on have sprung up with real travellers actually doing the writing. It is the growth of citizen journalism and the death of travel writing as a paid profession.
Simon Calder is an exception and sets the Independent apart.
There is one value however that paid bloggers and journalists can offer and that is the ability to get their content distributed to a wider audience. Particularly in the online space having a writer that might already have relationships with main travel sites and thus be able to produce content through say Matador, National Geographic, Lonely Planet etc is valuable.
18 Jun 09
9:13 am
With best respects to all the knockers above – how do they propose that travel journos make a living, especially the increasingly small band of Australian free lance journos? I know very few of them that earn enough to pay a mortgage and feed their families. Their perilous existence is being further threatened by media consolidation of travel articles – the SMH/Age joint travel pages on Saturdays and the upcoming consolidation of News Limited’s Escape section in the Sundays.
This has only been the subject of heated debate in the last week on the Australian Society of Travel Writer’s forum. So, yes, freebies exist, and we’d all like to see high quality travel journalism. But who’s going to write it when all the writers are forced to work elsewhere to stay alive?
18 Jun 09
9:17 am
While I understand the pressure to write a positive review of a freebie, it’s possible to get free stuff and still produce a valid review. While I haven’t been on any free trips (and honestly, I don’t think I’d say no), I’ve received free products and services for review. My policy is to find pros and cons for each product, and include both sides of the story in the write-up. I always view a totally glowing report with suspicion.
18 Jun 09
9:46 am
Without doubt the editorial integrity of the author is compromised by the dominance of advertisers in the media.
Not just in travel I might add, and not just by the writer. I’ve pitched a few less than glossy versions of stories to editors only to see them watered down or simply rejected. Publishers don’t want to get a reputation for being a loose canon.
But there a flipside. It turns out readers have a limited appetite for the gritty details, they really want to read about the good stuff and not the rubbish. It’s the opposite of watching the nightly news bulletin
So you end up with a lot of gushing about places that really are gush-worthy. Why waste your time writing up a mediocre experience that you have no passion for? You learn to avoid the trips that aren’t your genuine passion, life is too short and the world is too interesting.
For the professionals who travel all year round (not the occasional staff journo who is thrown a free holiday then turns in a predictably pallid puff piece) they must love their work and love where they travel, else they’d find a job that pays a proper salary.
We’d all love to work with independent budgets and offer comment that is frank and fearless – but at present the audience isn’t willing to pay for that. That just leaves blogs for the publishing of alternative travel, and for the most part the reader is getting exactly what they pay for.
18 Jun 09
9:53 am
Hmmm.
If it wen’t for the freebies,I wonder how many travel writers there would be? Advertorial is fine as long as it is clear that the journo/writer has been on a junket.
Interestingly, I picked a copy of the latest Lonely Planet magazine and was just thinking to myself over my weetbix this morning that there is an inordinate number of high profile contributors to the mag. Where has the independence of thought that was the hallmark of LP gone? Was it there in the first place like we were all told?
18 Jun 09
9:55 am
As Janet says, the problem is that publications themselves won’t pay for you to go anywhere. And they certainly don’t pay you enough for the articles to pay for your own way! If freelance travel writers had to pay for everything themselves then our entire weekend supplements and travel magazines would be filled with stories about trips to the local Milk Bar!
Professional travel writers are just that – professional. They are held to the same standard of ethics as any other journalist. Especially those who are in say the Australian Society of Travel Writers. But at the end of the day they’re selling the fantasy of travel. Nitty gritty. To accuse all of us of only writing glowing reports I think is a bit unfair but I do see your point.
I’m predominantly a travel photographer and from my point of view I don’t see many pictures of rainy days or cyclones in North Queensland. It’s all smiling couples and sunny days as presented by the tourism bureaus. Does that mean it’s not going to rain when you visit Cairns?
The flip side of that though is that if non-professional travel writers are seen to be a fair and accurate judgement of how a destination is, how are they to be held up to ethical standards? Just because they didn’t enjoy their evening meal who’s to say that the head chef wasn’t home crook that night and an apprentice was cooking. Can they be trusted to follow up and find out? Are they trained journalists who know how to find the truth by asking a number of different sources?
If you really object to travel writers getting comped trips then write a letter to your favourite newspaper/magazine and demand that they pay working travel writers/photographers a living wage. Extra payment every time their article gets used online, syndicated to another paper etc Enough money so that they can visit all the places you want to read about in any given year. So we’ll need enough money to visit say India, Nepal, Africa and most of South East Asia in the first six months thankyou very much.
18 Jun 09
10:02 am
As one of the freelance travel writers who files regularly for Australian newspapers I’d just like to say that I appreciate where the comments above are coming from. t would also like to assure any readers that I write first and foremost for the reader, although I am always grateful for the support of tourist organisations, airlines and hotels. I really try to write what I think but the truth is that I rarely have a bad experience and so my stories are a true reflection of that. Having said that I have written several pieces in the last year which were very honest in balancing the good and the bad about the destination I was writing about. One, about a brand new hotel, was overtly critical about its feel and design and that in spite of the fact that I had been given three (very expensive) nights accommodation there. Another, about China, talked about the country’s poor human rights, its relentless development and the pollution and also gave two sides of the story about the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River. A third was on Palm Island, hardly a recognised tourist destination, and included the notion that tourism might not be welcome there at all. The point I am making is that not all newspaper travel writing is a saccharine endorsement of the destination in return for free travel.
I thank Janet McGarry for pointing out how hard it is for us professional travel writers to make a living these days. I have a family and a home like many of the people I am writing for and it is an increasingly desperate fight to keep the work flowing. No travel writer worth his or her salts wants to paint formulaic, entirely positive pictures in their stories. If, we, as professionals, want to remain useful then we have to use our skills to inform, provide comment on and present as vivid a picture of a place for the reader as possible.
I started out as a reader of travel writing and am passionate about being honest in my stories. It’s the only way any reader is going to trust me and perhaps invest their hard earned cash in a trip to somewhere I recommend. The danger of sites like http://www.tripadvisor.com is that they are even more open to abuse. There have been a number of cases recently of hotel owners posting their own reviews of their properties – and others – under different names.
I welcome this debate and recognise the validity of the comments. Thanks for giving me the chance to contribute.
All the best
Daniel Scott
18 Jun 09
10:02 am
Janet, we do pay our regular writers at Travel Generation very well – but they don’t get anything from the operators themselves.
Good point though Ewen about people only wanting to read good stuff about travel experiences.
In generating online readership it is immensly frustrating that your most read content is throw away articles such as “10 ways to beat loneliness” or “8 things to buy for fathers day for travel” instead of the well researched and written pieces on actual destinations or activities. Readers are far more likely to Stumble or Tweet these “resource” pages that they glance at, than the good stuff they don’t read properly – and unfortunately, at the end of the day it is page views which determine the success of your website and therefore the advertising revenue.
18 Jun 09
10:13 am
I think a really valid point from the above comments is that at the end of the day it is the magazines and papers that really need to change their attitude. Their model is create content that is compelling for their readers so that their readership goes up, they sell more copies, they sell more advertising and therefore they make more money.
In this way they should be paying their staff writers commensurately to ensure good quality independent content. In this way the issue is not with the travel writers but the actual publications – but, I think we have more chance of achieving world peace than getting Murdoch to cut into his profits.
18 Jun 09
10:15 am
Dan
you are so right about the content on travel websites. These days if it isn’t “Ten Best Places to Nude Up” then it isn’t worth submitting. The title of the “story” has to have a five or a ten in it or the words “nude”, “naked” or “sex”. I worked for two years for one of Australia’s top travel websites and saw it go from reasonably intelligent destination stories to nothing but this lowest-common demonator crap. And by the way, most of that is written by people who have never been to half the places they are writing about. That’s the truth of a round-up piece, generally. So, again I ask, how reliable is that? And as Paul says, how can you be sure that non-professional reviews are fair reflections of a place. With many years of experience of reviewing destinations etc, professional travel writers do at least know when to make allowances and when something is consistently wrong or bad and needs fixing.
I think the best thing for readers and buyers of travel product is to consult a range of newspapers, web sites etc and of course word of mouth from friends. What I am aiming at is to be up front with readers as to who I am and then they can make their own minds up about whether they like my style. If they don’t, fair enough, they can look elsewhere.
D
18 Jun 09
11:45 am
Hey Dan – good on you if you are paying for your content for your site..but you are the exception. The debate currently under way with Australian travel journalists is that they are facing extinction as their markets contract and they are expected to provide more for less e.g. free photos, free online rights etc etc. The fact that they get some free travel, accommodation from tourism bureaus isn’t going to compensate them for the lack of a base income. I’m glad I’m not a freelancer.
On the side of online user generated content – it is great, up to a point. It lets everyone be a travel writer, but it doesn’t replace a well researched, well written and well illustrated travel article. It just compliments it.
And my final comment, Australia’s travel editors (of which I am one) need to also play their role. Don’t publish or commission fluff pieces; have some journalistic integrity; go with entertaining challenging writing that will not always please advertisers but will be better for the readers; and support your writers… or one day we will wake up and they will be gone.
18 Jun 09
2:02 pm
Wow noone mentioned there are several magazines in Australia that do not accept free or sponsored travel for their editorial.
The industry is killing its own golden egg.
IF the industry had a robust professional and highly enaged travel media in Australia, it would greatly benefit. Travel would be a habit and important part of life as opposed to a luxury.
What happens today is the complete opposite and it is in fact largely the Media Proprietors fault and to a lesser extent the advertisers.
The travel writers are in fact respondign to their paymasters and after a few drinks most will tell you how they HATE not being able to report as they woudl like. I have had one editor memorably tell me he would never call himself a journalist as he felt it was offensive to real journalists.
Travel magazines in australia are by and large the most unprofessional part of the publishing industry.
Australian Traveller magazien is the ONLY travel magazine in Australia to have a paid circualtion audit. Seriously think about that for a second.
NO OTHER TRAVEL MAGAZINE IN AUSTRALIA HAS A PAID CIRCULATION AUDIT.
This is a fundamental practice for any reputable publisher. It costs $400 and takes half a day.
The following titles do not have an audit:
Vacatiuons & Travel
Get Lost
Holidays for Couples etc etc
The following have a FREE DISTRBUTION Audit:
Travel & Leisure
Holidays with Kids (Although the audit bureau were summing their enitre years circulation and giving it to each issue for a long time)
So what? Well it does tell you that the travel magazine induistry is extremely unprofessional and not acting in the best intersts of the travel industry.
It also shows how bloody hard it is to get anyone to buy one.
Why?
Well for the last 20 years the travellers/readers have been served “shades of magnifcence” famil based editorial. And they HATE IT.
The consumer has been trained to not buy travel magazines because of the lack of credibility.
A Small Case study:
We published the 100 best towns in australia. We received several abusive emails from people telling us that it was a complete sham and we had merely profiled the best adveritsers or those towns that had given us access to their bar.
Highly insulting to the work that was in fact done but highlights the damage that the famil based grandiose magnificence editorial that has been served up does. None believes the industry and if they do not beleive you, they do not buy your mag and if they do not buy your mag, your advertisers are wasteing their money.
The propreitor is in fact serving the perceived interests of the advertiser and not the reader. Percieved interests because advertising to noone is actually not in the interests of the advertisers.
Who to blame?
Well the proprietors are merely taking money from advertisers without serving up an audience. The audience is not tunign in beacuse the content is marketing and they KNOW IT.
The advertisers are not beign informed and are not askign the right fundamental questions.
Who is reading this?
How many?
Now prove it.
18 Jun 09
2:31 pm
One thing that I think everybody is forgetting is the question of who is going to pay? Yes it’s all very well and fine to say that if you’ve had a trip comped then you are in some way beholden to the sponsors to write nice things. Maybe, maybe not. Surely it depends on the writer. But if you aspire to be a professional in this business, well by the very term professional you expect to be paid – not just for your output but your expenses as well. To do your work you have to travel – a lot. If the tourism bureaus etc aren’t allowed to support you who is going to pay for us to do our work?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly not saying that there’s nothing wrong with the way the system works and I’m not trying to defend comped travel at all. I’m humbly asking the question – if everybody expects their travel writers to do all this traipsing around and furnish well-written, objective copy with scintillating images who is going to make it financially worthwhile? If the current level of pay rates means that many full-time travel writers/photographers find it very difficult to make a living even with comped travel how are we expected to do it without?
People who know me know that I’m not trying to play devil’s advocate here. This is a serious question that goes to the heart of the travel writing industry. Sure we’d all like to be Bill Bryson floating around and writing whatever we feel about wherever we go but reality dictates that only the very wealthy can afford to travel that much, and nobody is too keen on publishing it!
18 Jun 09
2:59 pm
I’ve been on my fair share of junkets in 49 years of arrested development as a reporter, which began as the last full time shipping cadet on the Sydney Morning Herald.
Despite some scathing articles I’ve written, and continue to write, about airline product, service standards, and the assorted acts of bastardry and idiocy that befall me and others, I continue to receive personal calls of outrage from various levels of airline management YET invitations to try out this service or that.
My favourite invitation from the 90s was to an Emirates function which was to polo, and gave instructions as to where my entourage could stable my horse while I enjoyed the pre match hospitality. (Emirates took a while to understand the circumstances of working media in Australia.)
Between the 80s to mid 90s I also spent a great deal of time writing up the hotels and resorts building boom. I’m pleased to say that my negativity about the nonsense spoken by some of the management companies of the time was supported by The Bulletin, and the Sydney Morning Herald of those years. The bullshit was easy to find, but writing it up required the support of fearless editors like Vic Carroll, David Dale and James Hall. Such editors do not exist so far as I can tell in what is left of the print media today. Those that occupy such roles are struggling to delay the inevitable. I admire many of them, it is a miserable and difficult task, and I never imagined until about a year ago that I could actually outlive Fairfax, which truly, is rather sad.
On one occasion on The Bulletin finance editor Bruce Jacques and I wrote a cover story on the folly of Sir Peter Abeles’s Hayman Island redevelopment. Kerry Packer received a hand written note from Abeles requesting our dismissal, which the jovial tyrant shared with us, saying “I told him to go f*ck himself.”
The ratio of complaints to freebies these days is about ten to one. I don’t accept many invitations anyhow and I usually fly on revenue tickets bought by clients as I go places to talk to those who pay very good money to hear in person the things the media no longer reports. And I buy my own domestic and trans Tasman tickets, and plan on doing so to Europe later this year when a clinic tries to find part of my head and rearrange it.
It could be the first serious article on medical tourism published in Australia.
I quit ASTW many years ago because it was a babble of PR spinners and trough feeding media. The real consumer stories, about distribution, advertising rorts, safety matters, and failures in the public administration of aviation safety or airport policy are ignored almost totally in the general media.
But I make a good living from them.
18 Jun 09
3:47 pm
Ben great stuff and thanks so much for sharing.
Paul, the only reason Australian Traveller is a domestic only travel publication is that we can afford the travel bill to get the story.
Yes someone has to foot the bill. Build a great media with engaged audience and delvier the advertisers an audience.
International would be inmpossible for us as an independent operation at this time.
However when the accountants start running the media companies (or falied academics in Fairfax’s case) then we are NEVER goign to have the brave editors Ben pines for.
Media needs to be run by proprietors NOT accoutnats. Proprietors can make the brave calls to tell them get F*&KED.
18 Jun 09
7:54 pm
Hey Quentin, it’s great to hear your input being on the other side of the fence and I think what you and Greg (and your team) have done is really great and to be commended.
And I agree totally with what an ideal travel writing world would look like too. Hell in my perfect travel publication world I get to go along as a photographer. The writer takes care of their part and I take care of my specialty, rather than both of us being expected to do both and compromise quality. But that’s another mind-numbing headache of an argument all together.
I guess what I was fishing for is not complaints about how bad everything supposedly is but real alternatives. It’s all fine to say that the writers are pandering to the magazines who are pandering to the advertisers but who is offering a real alternative to this model of publication? (I know you guys are but one magazine can’t support a whole nation of travel writers!)
Ben I’m sorry you felt that way about the ASTW. As a former committee member and moderator of their new online forum I find them to be a group of dedicated travel writers who care deeply about the industry. Our online group has been really busy lately with writers talking about the future of our industry and it’s been actioned into various groups getting together to discuss strategies going forwards, and to present those at the AGM in Bangkok.
In the end does Australia really have a big enough population base to allow a number of travel magazines to send writers/photographers to various places to file travel stories and make a profit? If they did what would the cost be to the freelancers? I would think that as soon as big publications started footing the bill they would want to take the copyright to everything, but maybe I’m just a cynic! I think Aus Traveller is a great model and it’s wonderful that it’s so successful but how many similar magazines could this country support?
And in the meantime how do travel writers support themselves? In my mind having professional, responsible journalists being sent out (comped) to cover exciting destinations beats so-called ‘citizen journalism’ reports by people not trained in their job. Who would you trust to be non-judgmental and unbiased?
The people I know and work with choose their trips wisely. As Ewen pointed out they go to places they have a passion for and want to write about – not because a PR company sent them there but because they honestly like it. I know it’s not always true but for the vast majority of writers I believe it is. In a world where the money is so crap you have to have a passion for what you do or else you’d just get a job in the local deli and make more money! C’mon folks let’s give our travel writers a little bit of credit here.
18 Jun 09
7:57 pm
For me, Ewen and Team Dan have hit the nail on the head here. Newspapers and magazines simply don’t want critical reviews. I was once commissioned by a Sunday paper to review a new theme park in the UK. I was hosted by the theme park and it was rubbish. And I mean truly terrible. I wrote a scathing review and then spent six months trying to persuade the paper to run it. I then offered it to another paper who said they were interested in running it…until they saw the copy. And then it was all “well, unfortunately, we’ve got a big backlog of UK stories to get through you know…”.
Until outlets actively encourage writers to talk about the bad things, writers won’t do it. When I get back from a famil, I only pitch the good stuff to editors. Travel writing – more than other type of writing – is recommendatory. This isn’t like a restaurant review when you can award Fiji 7/10 “Great atmosphere but service was a little slow.”
And I’d suggest readers don’t want to read about crap destinations. Who would want to pick up a travel section and read 10 articles about places not to go?
Quentin – you make some valid points about circulation audits but you’re assertion that Australian Traveller pays for all its travel simply isn’t true. I know your editor very well (I’d consider him a mate) but I’ve been on at least three hosted famils with him. I’m sure he (and the other AT writers) have the journalistic integrity to present a balanced view but it’s misleading to claim that you never accept sponsored travel.
18 Jun 09
8:19 pm
David,
I stopped attending ASTW events in the late 80s so my comments would be inapplicable to anything that happened afterwards. The longer term travel writers I know include some very good friends and others that I enjoy reading as well. There is some very passionate and very fine travel writing being done in this country, and abroad, and with what I see an the inevitable passing of most of the print media I really hope a sustainable niche remains for beautifully (or brutally) illustrated, passionate and readable insights into places, peoples, times and almost coincidentally, the product.
Personally I think there is considerable merit in articles which say almost nothing about the usual sources of advertising apart from the briefest of listing of hotels relevant to this price range or that, and some cool advice on the tricks and traps of local life, as in how not to totally screw up taking the metro and trams in Budapest.
18 Jun 09
9:29 pm
I have to take a bite at this one Paul –
Australia certainly does have a big enough market to support a healthy travel media. I’d point a big finger at media ownership laws and say that’s one of the biggest factors that has led to the current state of the industry. Too few players have too much control – it’s bad for the journos and bad for the readers.
Diversity is so important.
It’s a similar story for the book publishing industry in Australia. The proposed parallel import laws are stated as trying to reduce the price of books the customer pays. Yay for the consumer? Bollocks. Cheaper books means Aussie authors are less likely to get published, and will earn less when they do get in print. Consumers will enjoy their cheaper product, but not the quality they currently have. Sound familiar?
Australian authors and publishers have stood up to be heard in that debate. By comparison I think this is one area that the ASTW could be more effective for it’s members.
After all Paul, you asked what are the alternatives? Do we leave it to the MEAA to fight the battles or roll up the sleeves and get our hands dirty?
19 Jun 09
12:32 am
Rob McFarland, glad you pointed out the hypocrisy of Australian Traveller as I too know people on both sides of the industry (PR and media) that have been on famils with the magazine that doesn’t accept famils.
I disagree with the argument that people don’t want to read critical stories. Readers LOVE critical, scathing stories, whether it’s travel, film, theatre or whatever. What readers want is an entertaining read – the slant of the story, positive or negative, doesn’t matter.
Travel writing isn’t all about being informative or making readers want to visit a place – I believe its main aim should be to entertain. I’ve read plenty of (narrative) travel books about places I haven’t been to and may never go to, but I still enjoyed the book because the writer made it worth reading.
19 Jun 09
8:26 am
I actually agree with you FPP. But unfortunately most travel editors don’t. And, ultimately, they determine what runs.
19 Jun 09
9:25 am
Yes, Rob, the same has happened to me time and time again. Even that negative hotel review was doctored and the story has since disappeared off the website. Powerful people with advertising dollars, the owners.
I have to say that generalisations are, in general, not very helpful. This is a complex industry and everybody has their reasons for doing what they do. But to say all Australian travel writing fears telling the truth is just bollocks and in fact the writers from this country – including Rob who has just won a travel writing award in the USA – continue to punch above their weight (for a country of this size) on the international stage.
The travel writing industry is in a state of change and those of us who make a living from it are under all sorts of pressure. We have already started our own debate about how to adapt and change to meet the challenge of the new virtual world and newspapers streamlining content. What we don’t need is more maccho posturing from angry men telling us what we should be doing. I promise you that from my knowledge of this country’s travel writers, integrity is alive and well.
19 Jun 09
9:49 am
Hi all – what a great lively debate! So, I’m buying back into it here…
Rob – when I started editing the mag (rather a long time ago!) I was criticised for wanting features written in the first person. I was told it was unprofessional and not ‘right’. As I was flying by the seat of my pants a bit at the time I said screw it, and ran the features the way I wanted to read them. I wanted real comments from real people.. and when I commission pieces now, I hope that is still what I ask for.
Travel writing is personal and has to have passion or it doesn’t engage. There are plenty of writers in Australia who can deliver it… we just need more strong editors.
But this doesn’t answer the fundamental question – if print continues to contract, how are travel writers going to make a living?
19 Jun 09
10:17 am
Hi all
Thanks for contributing – it’s a fascinating debate. Could this be the answer we’re all looking for…
http://thumbrella.com.au/could.....#more-2345
Cheers
Martin, Thumbrella
19 Jun 09
1:09 pm
As the publisher of Holidays for Couples magazine I would like to rebut Quentin Long’s assertion that we are not audited as we most certainly are and have been for years.
19 Jun 09
1:53 pm
Thanks for that Rhonda.
I think Quentin’s point was that no other travel magazine in Australia apart from Australian Traveller has a PAID circulation audit. According to my reading of the Audit Bureaux of Australia website, Holidays for Couples has a CAB figure but not an ABC.
Cheers
Martin – Thumbrella
19 Jun 09
9:25 pm
As both an arranger of press trips and as a supplier of free nights, through our accomodation, it has to be said that there is always an implicit understanding for the journalist to provide a positive piece. Of course there is.
There is an understanding at some level unless you pay your own way. Simon Calder is of course fantastic and an example to the rest of the travel press.
what about mentioning very clearly beforehand that you wil be independent and write as you see it? At least then the travel provider is completely forwarned. Dee Birkett (who i think is excellent) gave us that kind of warning and we were happy to accept as we were confident of our service.
Another problem is press blaggers. Non travel specific journalists blagging free nights for quick articles – we cannot turn them down, they will always write positively, makes industry more sceptical of all you good professional guys out there! They can often blag nights and then not even get the article published. Really puts us (as they organiser) in a terrible position and so many are completely unrepentent.
20 Jun 09
9:08 pm
I find the integrity problem comes not so much from being hosted on a trip, but from what editors, on the whole, want.
As a freelancer, it’s incredibly hard to sell a negative piece. Travel editors want generally positive copy, and as a writer you end up focusing on the positive side of things in order to sell.
If something’s crap, the general approach ends up being to simply not mention it rather than tell it like it is. For example, I was hosted at a dreadful hotel recently – and I just told the tourist board rep that there is no way that I would cover it in the article. I’d have loved to have gone to town on it, but there’s simply no market to sell such a piece. I’d love it if there was
I think even Quentin and Greg at AT would admit that they’re unlikely to run much that is largely negative and critical. (And I speak as someone who writes for AT reasonably regularly). It’s probably the most honest travel publication in Australia though.
If I go to Place X and do three things, two of which are good and one of which is bad, I’ll probably be able to sell pieces on the first two. The last one has no chance. The key for me is to write about the positive stuff in an entertaining, honest, non gushy way. But I loathe reading the awful fluff that some publications will happily fill their pages with and I really cannot understand how those writers manage to get emplotment.
Personally, I think readers love reading a caustic, honest piece. But I don’t think publications full of them attract advertising. And there lies the crux of the problem.
20 Jun 09
9:35 pm
And a PS for Janet…
The only way to really make a living as a travel freelancer is to write and sell an awful lot of stories. That doesn’t leave much time for lovingly crafting them (not necessarily a bad thing in itself – it prevents pomposity creeping in for one).
Personally, I work on a principle of writing at least one 1,000 word story a day. And to sell that many, you need to be doing what the editor wants to publish, rather than what you desperately want to write.
21 Jun 09
7:01 pm
Great debate – thanks David Whitley for tweeting it.
As (I think) Daniel Scott said earlier on, I just rarely have a bad time. Who wants to know that I spent 15 minutes wandering around my deluxe superior suite at The Address Downtown Burj Dubai in the nude at midnight trying to figure out the insanely stupid lighting system so I could go to sleep? It is an irrelevant detail; Dubai remains fascinating. Who gives a monkeys if, after being really excited about coming to write about Renzo Piano’s Paul Klee art gallery in Bern, Switzerland, in the end I found it slightly underwhelming? It’s still worth visiting, and Bern is still amazing.
For an example of just how pointless and self-defeating negative writing can be, see this infamous article from the (London) Times. It caused a national stink in Bahrain; people there are still talking about it. Not in an admiring way.
http://tr.im/pdCi
To my mind, there’s a big difference between travel writing and travel journalism. I know Simon Calder, and have written for him/The Independent many times. He is just about the only consumer travel journalist I know – that is, he exposes and analyses issues in consumer travel for the benefit and education of consumers themselves. Same model (more or less) as political journalists, financial journalists, etc.
Just about everyone else – myself included – are travel writers. We’re paid to write stuff that, in the best-case scenario in a quality publication under an enlightened editor, encapsulates some essence of the truth of a place – but which, in most cases, exists merely to give people ideas about where to go on holiday. 99% of the time there is, and should be, no element of journalism involved.
Travel journalism, I would say, means investigating your hotel’s greywater reuse system, interviewing hotel employees, discussing a tourist destination’s future prospects with the mayor, finding out how much the local airport pays in order to get no-frills airlines to fly there, drawing in perspective from similar places in the same region and beyond… In other words, it doesn’t really exist. Virtually nobody is doing it. Where it exists it’s being done mostly by business journalists, frequently led by corporate PR.
But that doesn’t mean travel writing is a lie. Airlines, tourist boards and hotels only offer me comps because they know they will get a one-line mention in the factbox below my article. Fine by me. I focus pretty tightly on the Middle East. I’ve been lucky and have built up close relationships with 2 or 3 Middle East-friendly editors here in the UK. Comp flights and hotels mean I can afford to write more Middle East stories from more angles, and generally raise the profile of places I think are interesting and people who I think are doing interesting things. Is it a big deal to then say in the factbox: “The author stayed at Hotel X (phone number; website)”? I don’t think so – and I don’t feel in hock to Hotel X or Airline Y to then gush about their product. If the story is the destination, then the airline and the hotel are just means to an end – rather like ‘off-the-record’ briefings given to political journalists. A way to make the story happen. If they want a line of factbox in recompense, well OK.
(If the story is the hotel itself, or the airline, then things are obviously different – and accepting comps in that scenario is unethical. But if the editor won’t pay, then in my view such a story simply shouldn’t get published: it is hotel reviews written by comped journalists which undermine the whole industry, I’d suggest…)
Enough from me. Thanks all.
22 Jun 09
1:14 am
Thanks to all those who contributed to this excellent discussion! I’m a freelance music writer and I noticed a couple of similarities to that industry, such as publications expecting a positive review just because the writer received comp’d goods/tickets/access. Cheers.
22 Jun 09
3:17 am
Matthew, I disagree about people not enjoying negative reviews – as long as they’re well-written and have some element of fairness about it, I love them. Like the author of the article you linked to, I’ve stayed in outrageously expensive resorts which I felt where were really pretty crappy for the price, and I’ve wanted to tell people about it. And if I go googling hotels and resorts in Bahrain in order to plan my next trip there, I’ll be damn glad someone wrote and published this article before I took a chance with my £1400/night or however much it costs now. The fact that the writer called the resort’s management and/or marketing people on the hypocrisy of their claims to be eco-friendly gets a big thumbs up from me, too – there should be more of that. It’s understandable the article caused some offense in Bahrain as it was pretty brutal and that is a shame… however, in the end, it wasn’t written for the benefit of the people of Bahrain, but for people considering travel there.
22 Jun 09
4:04 am
#39 – hi SheilaK. Fine, fair enough. But I know this hotel. What he said may be funny, but it’s mostly wrong. When he starts out by saying, “Bahrain is so boring even the expats who live there call it “the Isle of Wight of the Middle East” all that says to me is that this guy has no idea where he is, what he’s looking at – and doesn’t want to know. That’s not professional travel writing, that’s TripAdvisor.
He says the design of the villas works perfectly – but he didn’t like the lobby bar. Big deal. He says the spa treatments were great – but he didn’t like the fact that they took place indoors, to avoid the heat of the desert. Huh? He says the service was too attentive. He says he wants alcohol. Yawn.
As for the supposed eco hypocrisy – if he was a real journalist, he’d know that, for instance, water is not scarce in Bahrain: unlike its Gulf neighbours, Bahrain is surrounded by perpetually flowing freshwater springs. Saving water matters there like it matters in Switzerland: some, but, well…
His preferred alternative, Al-Maha in Dubai, on the other hand – despite winning several industry awards – has serious questions over its eco credentials, its cultural sensitivity and its wildlife policy. And it’s owned by that green paragon, Emirates. It does serve beer, though.
Rant over. That’s why Bahrainis didn’t like this article: it’s not very good. If you’re going to slate somewhere, at least do your homework first! This guy didn’t.
22 Jun 09
8:33 am
Now out of the ATE Fog I can resaonbly answer a few questions.
I chose my word carefully (although my typing is atrocious). We do not accept famils for editorial.
The policy has been for the last four years that we may accept famil travel for research.
This is clearly articulated between us and any PR/Operator who kindly offers an invite. And we often get knocked back.
We will follow up with a commissioned journalist where we see fit. It also assists in quality control of material we receive – is it correct, is it well researched…. I am not sure how that is hypocritical.
Whitley, finding space for a negative review is only challenging by the balance of where to go and where not to go editorial.
Further a great piece of inspired writing is a great piece of writing – negative or positive. One of the most memorable for me was the lonely journey of a widower on the nullarbor plain. http://australiantraveller.com...../3524-2676
And before anyone jumps at it – that’s right, great writing can come from a famil, but it is made more difficult by trying to deliver on the explicit or non-explicit demands of a famil.
22 Jun 09
2:59 pm
Quentin,
Why would you say that “Travel magazines in Australia are by and large the most unprofessional part of the publishing industry”?
I’m the Managing Editor of HM magazine (which covers the accommodation industry) and I also launched Hilton Magazine in 2005. We are most certainly very professional and I find that my industry colleagues who edit other industry magazines and very professional as well.
Some individuals in the travel writing game aren’t professional – but I don’t use them. I think overall we have a fantastic collection of travel writers in Australia – such as Rob and Daniel – who are doing the travel industry the world of good.
Honestly I also don’t believe magazines should say they “don’t accept free or sponsored travel” when I have been on famils with journalists who clearly are writing for that mag. I’m not saying your mag as much, but a couple of other global magazines in particular.
I believe a good travel writer can provide an objective view of a destination, hotel, airline, bar, restaurant etc no matter whether they were hosted or not. That’s the real key here.
Some travel writers simply write the good points because it’s easy and the fact they were hosted. I think this is pure laziness and these are the kinds of stories I refuse to run.
But sometimes everything is good on a trip so why not write about? There’s no point writing about the bad parts of a hotel or airline when you can focus on what’s great.
Great writers will use their spare time on a junket to uncover what’s exciting about the destination where they are. And these are the stories I love.
James
22 Jun 09
3:05 pm
Small correction:
Honestly I also don’t believe magazines should say they “don’t accept free or sponsored travel” when I have been on famils with journalists who clearly are writing for that mag. I’m not saying your mag as such, but a couple of other global magazines in particular.
26 Jun 09
6:44 pm
This from the States:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06.....mp;emc=rss
29 Jun 09
11:41 am
There’s been quite a bit of debate of this issue among ASTW members as well; one member neatly pointed out that motoring writers aren’t expected to buy the latest car before they review it. Nor their publications, for that matter.
As I wrote in response to that discussion; I review comedy shows for The Age during the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and the free tix have never stopped me being totally honest, because there are hundreds of shows and the readers are relying on you to be straight with them as to their quality. I gave two shows ‘zero stars’ last year for the first time – and the flow of tix hasn’t stopped. PR people understand you’re doing your job in being honest, in my experience, even if they’d hoped for a rave review.
I’m sure the same principles apply to travel writing; with the distinct difference that it’s harder to get a negative article into print. The odd negative piece would add credibility!
Having said all that, I’m not a pessimistic person and, when I travel, I’m subconsciously looking out for the good and discounting the bad. I suspect the travel writer temperament is often thus – we expect to encounter the occasional less-than-exciting hotel room, so it doesn’t bother us as much as it might the average punter. It’s not a case of ignoring a fault, just not seeing it as particularly negative. Just a thought.
I know I’ve enjoyed every place I’ve travelled to, regardless of setbacks, though those setbacks have often ended up in the article. A piece I write on French Polynesia, for example, began with an account of trudging along a dusty wrote in the hot sun after the accommodation I’d booked online turned out to have closed down. But I didn’t whinge about it in the article, it became an amusing counterpoint to being in “paradise”. A big whinge at this point would’ve been, in my opinion, dull. And being dull is a sin it’s difficult for readers to forgive.
Tim Richards
Travel Blog: http://www.aerohaveno.com/
29 Jun 09
6:52 pm
Updating my comment (#7, 18 Jun 09) above…
The SMH’s ‘Beauty Beat’ blog (see http://blogs.smh.com.au/lifestyle/beautybeat/), which for the past two weeks has seen SMH blogger Natasha Hughes raving about spa treatments in the Shangri-La Singapore and another Shangri-La owned ’spas village’ resort in Borneo, has FINALLY added a declaration that “The spa treatment was courtesy of Shangri-La”.
Although that’s just the “spa treatment” itself, mind you – did Ms Hughes or Shangri-La also pay for airfare and accommodation for the entire trip? (I’d suggest it was Shangri-La, as Ms Hughes stayed at Shangri-La properties in both Singapore and Borneo).
So we’re still only partway to the SMH being transparent with the truth.
But what gets me is that this came after I repeatedly posted comments to the Beauty Beat blog – simple, straight-forward non-abusive comments asking Ms Hughes to clarify through her column if her trip was in fact a sponsored ‘junket’ and if so, to declare it as per SMH ethics and indeed journalistic ethics.
Despite these emails being courteously worded and not abusive in any way Ms Hughes blocked every single comment, refused to publish them, never replied to me via email. And only after two weeks of my commenting below every story and threatening to go direct to SMH editorial did that one-line write-off appear.
The SMH has a terrible record with letting bloggers get away with more tricks and less transparency than their peers in print. Some years back SMH.com.au had a travel blog written by a very well-established Aussie travel writer who none the less refused to run ANY declaration under any of his columns that the trips, destinations and tours he was praising in each column were sponsored.
The same thing happened then as now – comments posted to his blog to query the commercial or sponsorship status of his trips were banned, and only after this was brought to the attention of the Editor of the SMH did the appropriate declaration for sponsored travel suddenly appear under each story
This is clearly an area where mainstream media need to closely monitor their bloggers as those media embrace blogging.
30 Jun 09
8:50 am
Okay, here’s a confession. I have never worked for a magazine or newspaper with a significant travel budget, and have always had to rely on tourist boards and suppliers to host me. This is the reality for most travel journalists I know.
Clearly this creates the potential for biased reporting, and we owe it to our readers to make them aware of that by including some sort of disclaimer at the bottom of the article.
This has the added benefit of acknowledging the generosity of the host in an editorially neutral environment – and hopefully gives us the scope for a more accurate critique of the destination or product in the preceeding text.
Cheers
Martin – Thumbrella
2 Jul 09
4:02 pm
This discussion has paralleled closely the same on the ASTW chat room. Credit due to ASTW writers who feel that their integrity and credibility has been taken to task again, summing up enough energy to defend ourselves against spurious claims is challenging in perilous times.
I’ve had good luck this year in Fairfax Traveller section, writing long stories about destinations that I love.
I’ve never had any luck with stories about destinations that I’ve scorned. Keeping the advertisers happy has been a publisher’s mantra for yonks. I don’t believe that’s going to change very quickly.
Writing balanced stories for readers who are able to discern for themselves should be the modus operandi for all travel writers but this has morphed recently. Check out the rubbish posing as travel writing on yahoo or nine.msn to witness truly execrable gossip cum travel writing.
Unknown staff writers with no bylines writing complete and utter pap for people who probably don’t leave home very often–by writers who didn’t actually visit the destinations.
We have to compete against this nonsense.
As Ben Sandilands says, brave editors have become rare.
Claims of ‘travel without fear or favour’ or that the publication doesn’t accept stories from sponsored travel don’t help much either. Good travel writers can cover destinations regardless of having experienced them via a junket, or not.
Independent criticism is valued by the reader according to the talents of the writer.
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