Plus being freelance, I get paid peanuts and most of the publications I write for have very tight budgets- with so much big competition in print and online, I think the days of big editorial budgets are over.

I have sold advertising in a previous guise in many publications so the concept of ‘paid for’ advertorials has sometimes raised quite a fierce debate about the ethics of including advertorials in the same way people are divided for about taking ‘freebies’

As long as it is stated clearly in the advertorial-at the top for readers to see, at the end the reader is rational and intelligent enough to make its own mind up about the place or product featured-at least its more interesting than a glossy ad.

I think in the same way as long as writers make it clear that this is a ‘freebie’ and are objective in their reviews -then its perfectly acceptable. Also as long as the hotel being reviewed doesn’t put pressure -at the end of the day there is element of risk from their side that they must be prepared to accept the authors views- just by offering a freebie they cannot expect a glowing endorsement.

Plus with the time, research from reading reviews online, you’re already have a clear idea of what to expect-visiting the place, gives you more indepth insight and enables to authenticate your article and make it credible.

Plus yes, press junkets with all their freebies-can be stressful and fun.

When I go on a holiday with my loved ones-I like to leave my work behind and switch off

twitter.com/budgettraveller

Every mainstream publication is under direct or indirect influence of lobbies, banks, financial institutes, etc., that really control what it’s written and how, and thinking that a free press trip is going to undermine the trust readers put in a specific paper or journalist, is underestimating readers’ intelligence. Depending on who the paper is influenced by, its articles will always follow a specific agenda.

Before writing about travel, I’ve been writing about politics, music, theatre and society in general. I’ve never paid for a CD, or a concert: I wouldn’t have been able to buy hundreds of CDs in order to write their review. And if i didn’t like an album, I’d say it, like my other colleagues.

If every travel article praises every aspect of every trip, that sounds unnatural. I’m a journalist, not a novel writer, I don’t have a huge imagination, all I write stems from research and observation.

Virgina Postrel (http://www.dynamist.com/weblog/archives/003048.html) thinks Tripsas should have been let go not for ethical violations but for shoddy work.

Postrel has this to say: “Instead of focusing on inputs, the Times should focus its quality control on outputs: what actually appears in the paper. Drop the absurd ethics guidelines, hire freelancers who know their subjects and how to write about them, and disclose any potential conflicts so readers can make up their own minds. Think about delivering value to the reader rather than ritualistically adhering to journalistic guild customs. Alternatively, the Times could shrink the paper to include only that reporting whose costs it can cover out of its own budget and stop trying to free ride.”

I think your point about retraining readers to pay for good writing is a really good one. So you, I, and Rupert Murdoch are all in agreement, then.

You can read me regularly on the LA Travel pages of About.com at http://golosangeles.about.com
periodically at
http://www.rainydaytraveler.com
and I have print clips at
http://www.kaytedeioma.com/TravelWriting.htm

Thanks for the interest

I will not write anything good (or much at all, even bad publicity is publiity) about a place regardless of what they paid, but I am not going to feel bad about it. If they can’t put on their best show for the press, why would I tell people about the place as a travel option?

Marcia

My sentiments exactly, especially:

“I am always surprised by other writers who believe it is their obligation to write something nice about every venue in return for the privilege of being on the trip.”

Where can we read more of your writing?

I make it clear when I accept a press invitation that there is no guarantee of favorable coverage or that every venue we visit will be covered. I am always surprised by other writers who believe it is their obligation to write something nice about every venue in return for the privilege of being on the trip.

It is great to be invited to a destination and have your flight and nice hotels and meals covered and visit attractions you might not normally be able to afford, but it’s also a heck of a lot of WORK. In what other occupation are you expected to PAY to work, rather than getting paid to work?

Flying 18 hours in an uncomfortable plane (rare is the press trip that flies you business or first class), to be rushed from hotel to meal to attraction to meal to attraction to meal to a new hotel every day, taking notes, interviewing locals and tourists, downloading photos until the wee hours of the night, then dragged out of bed at the crack of dawn to do it all again – then spending a day to a week or more to craft one or more stories on the destination…is something I’d rather do than most other jobs, but it’s still WORK! Even if you’re fortunate enough to be making $1 or more a word, you may still be writing for minimum wage. Most travel outlets pay a lot less than that.

If I’m organizing my own trip for a story, rather than taking a group trip, I still request to have the flight, the hotels, the attractions and a few meals comped, but I choose venues I know I want to write about, and if something turns out to be a bad experience, I just let the PR person know that it was a bad experience and leave that out of the story (unless I feel it’s something I need to warn people about).

Journalistic ethics are a personal matter, and if you feel you can be unflinchingly objective (OK, sometimes I flinch when I reveal the mold in the AC at an otherwise beautiful hotel), then you should feel comfortable having your travel expenses paid by whoever is willing to pay them in order to find a story you want to tell.

Hello to Mammoth duly passed along. Its response was muffled by a fresh crust of white blown in sometime in the wee hours, but I can tell it misses you. It’s changed a bit since 94, but deep down and in between it’s as it’s been for the last five or six centuries, at least since the last big eruptions. Cheers.

Good reporters get paid a living wage (most of the time). It shouldn’t be any different for good travel reporters.

Say hi to Mammoth for me. Lived there from about ‘84 to ‘94 when I started and ran the HI Hilton Creek Int’l Hostel at Crowley Lake.

http://www.satw.org/satw/index.asp?SId=81

In general, puts the onus on the “content provider” to “avoid conflicts of interest” and to be “open with editors/publishers about their own activity that could compromise or might appear to compromise their integrity on a given assignment,” including but not limited to being forthright about what sort of freebies might have been accepted.

Seriously, I have mixed feelings about this topic. I wear several hats. I’m an environmental and government reporter for a daily paper in Frisco, Colorado, and I’m also the travel editor for the same paper. And, I’m also pursuing freelance travel writiing.

So when I’m working as a reporter, I operate under a strict code of journalism ethics.

Are travel journalists different? Should they be exempt from journalistic standards? If so, why?

I wrestle with these questions all the time. Now for the disclosure. In researching a guidebook the past year, I did accept some complimentary hotel stays. In fact, I asked for them, with the reasoning that I could never afford to stay the places I was supposed to be researching. I chose places that I KNEW I was going to include in the guidebook in any case, based on their existing reputation and and other available information.

Just the two nights in Aspen alone would have completely killed my entire budget. Did I feel a bit queasy about it?

You bet I did. Did I have a choice? Not in my mind. I didn’t see how I could write about some of these places honestly without staying at them, and there was no way I could afford to pay the rate.

Did I maintain objectivity?

It’s hard to say for sure, but I think I did.

For all of my other freelance travel stories, I have never accepted, or asked for, freebies. Almost always, the trip comes first, the stories flow from that. That includes stories for the Miami Herald on the Negril Yoga Center in Jamaica, an eco-adventure in Belize for Caribbean Beat, stories on Antarctica for local Colorado papers and many others.

An interesting twist: After the Jamaica story came out in the Miami Herald, the owner contacted me and offered me a free week’s stay during the off-season as a way of saying thanks.

Do you think I accepted the offer?

I did.

Should I have?

For me, the bottom line questions remains, why should travel journalists be different from other journalists?

In a perfect world, travel writers would get paid enough to not have to accept freebies. It’s not a perfect world, but instead of just jawing about this issue, it would be nice to see some concrete steps toward some kind of resolution. I think some sort of code of travel writing ethics would be a good thing, acknowledging that freebies aren’t ideal, but outlining some rules for responsible conduct.

Remember, there is really no bad publicity because writing about something will always stir up interest. If I don’t like what you are offering — whether you paid for my experience or not — I will not write about it.

Marcia

I balance my travel work with work in the music industry (also as a writer and photographer), where – as it happens – the same question of freebies / ethics equally apply. (Just the other day a PR friend of mine was telling me about a journalist who would call their company regularly and say “Good morning XX Travel Agency, where will I be flying off to this week” – such was the overt understanding that this person would be exchanging words for travel miles.)

Nevertheless, that journalist happens to be well respected, a complete music fanatic that has built up a large and devoted fanbase due to their vast knowledge and brutal honesty. Evidence, perhaps, that freebies don’t always equal puffy copy, though of course they do in many cases. I think it ultimately comes down to the individual and his or her conscience/attitude to such things.

But maybe the more pertinent point is that writers (or photographers) shouldn’t be put in this position. As David P pointed out, press trips/freebies have become a necessity in industries like music and travel writing where the publishers or magazines cannot (or will not) stump up the cash themselves, and it is these people who should be questioned, not the poor writers who are not only expected to work for next to nothing for their art but who then face such torturous ethical questions besides.

This scenario exists partly of course because of the legions of new or emerging travel writers hungry for experience who will take on guidebook gigs for next to nothing for the experience, the thrills and the glamour. And who, really, can blame them?.

Publishers (and magazine editors – in both the music and travel worlds) take advantage of this surplus of free / cheap labour and of course it pushes fee down. But again, it’s not the fault of the writer. It’s the fault of the publisher for not setting some kind of standard.

Publishers need to step up their game and give professional writers and photographers decent budgets to do a decent job. If they don’t, they should be the ones hauled in front of the Ethics Tribunal. When you think about it, it’s little wonder many people don’t think twice about accepting freebies or the moral implications involved when they’re generally too busy trying to get a decent job done under time and financial pressure. Where’s the incentive?

And the reality is, it’s getting worse. A travel-writer friend of mine was recently asked by a publisher if they might be happy to pay all the expenses for a book upfront themselves – and also waive their fee for several months until the requisite amount of copies of said guide were sold. This was disguised as a “Joint Venture” but it really meant the publisher wanting to take even less risks and placing even more restrictions on the book-writing process – all the while offering no discernible advantage to the writer.

Obviously publishers have their own problems, especially in the recession era, but tightening the purse strings to the point of strangulation can only lead to asphyxiated experiences and choked copy.