Whitewashed travel articles

[Sam Scribe]

At the doctor's office yesterday I read a travel article that was so breathlessly enthusiastic about the destination that it turned me off. I'll assume the story was the result of a press trip run by a media company that runs a lot of desirable junkets. How pressured are travel writers these days to provide "nice coverage" for places they've visited on these press trips? 

[Jan Ross]

I have never felt any pressure to write positive articles when I take a press trip. They just try to offer accommodations, restaurants, tours, etc. that they think are excellent so you will want to write a good review and travelers will want to visit. The trips I have been on have been so lovely and all the people have been so friendly and wonderful (they are in PR, after all!) that I always want to do a good job for them. And the experiences have been so great, that's not a problem. I only had one experience with a terrible restaurant and that was a trip I organized myself. I just told the PR person I could not write a good review and maybe we could try another time - after all, a restaurant experience can change. She was fine with that. I have been pretty "breathlessly enthusiastic" about things - in fact, that happens pretty often!

[Allan Lynch]

The travel editor of a major newspaper told me he was retiring, "because I have run out of adjectives."

Who believes the breathlessly enthusiastic? That's just someone whoring themselves out. I don't go out of my way to find negatives about a place, but I believe I am realistic about what travellers will find on the ground. You can advise people in such a way that they're prepared and know how to handle something which may otherwise disappoint.

I keep in mind it's not my job to disappoint a reader - or get them killed. So how do we prevent that? I write about the experience I had and that they could also have. For example, I did a piece on having gypsy caravan in Ireland. I'm concerned that handing a horse and wagon over to any fool with a credit card can hurt the horse, so I made sure to mention some of the challenges, like having to ride the brake going down a long hill so we didn't run over Danny, our horse, with the massive bloody wagon.

Oh yeah, I rarely, if ever mention hotels in my pieces. What do others do? I'm a travel writer, so I don't pay and I've given the best rooms in the best hotels. Thankfully my readers have more money than I do, but for those who have to pay I leave it up to them to find accommodations to suit their lifestyle, interests and budgets.

[Hal Peat]

Have you been on a press trip at all in recent years, either group or individual, Sam?  There are so many variables to this that it's impossible to provide you with a one-size-fits-all answer to your question.  Aside from which, the choice of wording in your question also creates its own questions - at least in my perception - about your own set of assumptions or awareness of the dynamics behind and during a press trip.  So I'll just comment on this initially:

"..it turned me off" - Good! You had the right reaction then.  But even an ordinary traveler nowadays knows they can be hustled as hard by the media as they are by a car dealer or real estate agent.  Buyer beware always.  But was it written by an American writer for North American media?  If so, there should have been disclosure provided on any gratuities accepted.  That's one of the big aforementioned variables I referred to - could be American, could be anywhere else in the world as far as publisher/writer. 

"media company" - In my experience and observation, rarely is a "media company" the prime instigator, funder or player in a press trip.  The genesis comes from a travel entity - hotel, event, transport, tourism board, activities operator, each often collaborating with the TB if the TB itself isn't the primary player.

"...desirable junkets" - From whose perspective is it desirable or a "junket"?  Here's the deal: a press trip treated appropriately and professionally is the last thing you could describe as a "junket" - it's a working trip, and if it's not a working trip then you have no business there. 

"How pressured..." - There's a world of difference between being awoken at 3 AM by a flack sobbing on the phone to write a good word about her client and someone onsite during your trip who's giving you a glowing description of a property, an event, a restaurant, a neighborhood.  I've never had the former happen, but anyone on the ground during an actual trip who has the least experience, training, redactive skills or awareness that they're basically just listening to so much sales talk, will know how to filter and exercise judgment, will know how to investigate, ask the right questions and dig for the honest answers.  Or they should. 

"...travel writers" - Ah yes, let's save the best for last, shall we?  In my perception, your question keeps coming up in recent years - and I mean of course over the past 5 years or so - because the increasing majority of participants on said press trips are in fact people who define themselves either solely or primarily as "travel bloggers", and definitely many of a certain subsection of those travel bloggers - although not all, because some of us have a range and variety of media and working models in our ongoing professional lives - are getting in under the radar on these trips with no more purpose than to treat it mainly as a "junket".  If you want to read the bulk of glowing reviews that show no critical eye for a destination, event, meal, because they have no formal training or awareness of a journalist's investigative skills, and for the most part  none of a writer's narrative skills, then I'd say that's where you find the main perpetrators of that kind of drivel.  And yes, there is an accompanying subset of PR firms, social media experts and organizations that enable all that to happen.  Meanwhile, travel writers will keep on writing.  I could quote Nietzsche here, but I'll resist the temptation. 

[JaVonne Harley]

Honestly speaking, you do feel obligated to your hosts to write the positives. I also, feel obligated to tell the truth and provide readers or listeners in my case, a real picture. I focus and highlight the positives and report the negatives (if any) in a factual way. I like to give balance and a true picture.

[Steve Cohen]

There's always been a lot of crappola out there and today it's worse than ever. Newspaper and magazine travel editors used to keep things semi-on-the-up-and-up, but today it's a free-for-all. Along with all the inexperienced bloggers, there's a lot of paid-for pr masquerading as travel journalism. I've been a travel writer for 30 years. I was a member of SATW for 23 years. I've written twenty guide books. Frankly, I kinda got fed up with all the BS and recently vented about it in a "Fictional Memoir" about a travel writer. One strong current running throughout is why ethics and travel writing are pretty much mutually exclusive. Surprisingly, this one's been a Kindle bestseller. It does better than my travel books. If you want to check it out, here's a link: Travel To The G-Spot

Review copies available. Thanks.

 

[Deb Thompson]

Hi Sam - I've never done press coverage but I do write travel reviews so I can imagine there must indeed be pressure when one is receiving compensation of some type from the host.  However, I would like to think I wouldn't just blather on in "breathless enthusiasm" as you so entertainingly described it.  I would like to think I'd report the facts and be honest about what was really great and what was so enjoyable, in a factual way.  It's very rare that a destination or experience is "all fantastic" or "totally horrible".  Usually there's a mix of good and bad, and a proper review should definitely not "whitewash" a place just because they are there on a press trip.