Seven suggestions for becoming a travel writer

A friend’s daughter who just earned her master’s in journalism recently asked me about how to break into travel writing. Apparently the suggestions I passed along were useful:

Thank you for giving me more practical, helpful advice in your e-mail than I got in the entirety of grad school. Seriously, if we had only had more guests like you come into our classes (and fewer guests who were frazzled, depressed editors of soon-to-be-dead publications), I might have come out of it with some realistic expectations and feeling like there was a way to make online journalism work as a career.

(I quote her less for the ego boost than the insight into today’s J school.) Anyway, here’s the part of my e-mail to her where I passed along tangible to dos to get a travel writing job:

• Create your own blog. Most online publications won’t hire you unless you have a site of your own. Use it to highlight where you’ve been published, share your expertise, and provide insight on yourself and your articles (like the director’s cut feature on a DVD).
• Create a Twitter account and follow other travel writers and editors, interacting with the most important ones. Follow PR types who represent businesses you’re interested in writing about too.
• Create a Tumblr account–it’s popular with NYC-publishing types (and fun to use).
• Read travel blogs, post comments on them, and apply to write for the ones you like.

And after you get a travel writing job, do the following:

• Promote the heck out of yourself. Every article I write I send out to about 35 different social networks (yes, that’s a bit much, but at least share your articles on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and LinkedIn).
• E-mail the subjects of your articles and their PR people, even if they didn’t help you when researching your article, letting them know that you wrote about them. Hopefully they’ll pass around your article or link to it, leading to more page views.
• Use Help a Reporter Out (HARO) to find sources. Not only will good ones just present themselves to you, but it’ll get you attention from publicists that can help you find good stories.

Speaking with U of L journalism students about new media and a career in writing

Tuesday night I spoke with writer and professor Jenni Laidman‘s magazine and feature writing class at the University of Louisville about new media, how the career of journalism and writing is changing, and what new skills the students should acquire.

My career path and most of the publications I write for didn’t even exist when I was in college, which wasn’t all that long ago (at least it feels that way). So while I had plenty to say about subjects that are relevant now, I wonder how applicable a lot my advice will be in a few years when the underclassman are looking for jobs. Of course, an ambitious student writer would do well to buy a domain and build a website to showcase his or her portfolio, create social media accounts to look for ideas and interact with other writers, and start writing for blogs.

Afterwards I helped evaluate the students’ pitches for profiles they’ll be writing. I was impressed with the quality of their story ideas, most of which sounded like they’d make for interesting articles.

Photo: Courtesy of University of Louisville

Former editor at Gridskipper, Hunter Walker, goes legit, but not

In 2007-2008, Hunter Walker was an assistant editor at Gridskipper. In that capacity, he was possibly the sole editor I’ve written for who sexed up my work rather than made a few strategic deletions (I had no objections).

So what did the future hold for such a depraved blogger?

He’s now enrolled in Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. And demonstrating that the conflux of old and new media is almost complete, he’s talking about it with The New York Times and blogging about it for Gawker.

Does ESPN.com’s sports reporting no longer include game coverage?

ESPN.com above the fold, 10:43 p.m., July 28, 2009

(Select the image to enlarge it and read ESPN.com’s headlines.)

Is game coverage no longer an essential part of ESPN.com’s sports reporting?

Yes, there’s a baseball scoreboard above the masthead, but in terms of articles on ESPN.com? Only one headline is about the result of a sporting match (“Phelps beaten buy world-record time in 200 free”).

Examples of what sports stories did merit prominent coverage:

• a washed-up quarterback is not coming out of retirement
• trial status for a football player who accidentally shot himself at a nightclub
• predictions of union talks

Did I catch the self-proclaimed “worldwide leader in sports’” website at an off moment or were ESPN.com’s editorial decisions the norm for sports reporting?

The Louisville Courier-Journal’s Larry Muhammad liked my thoughts enough to quote me, but not mention me

The Courier-Journal’s Larry Muhammad quoted me four times today but didn’t include my name or a link to my original article

In the first five paragraphs of “An iced coffee war is brewing” in today’s Louisville Courier-Journal, Larry Muhammad quoted one of my articles for Louisville.com, “Navigating Bardstown Road’s non-Starbucks coffee culture,” four times.

But you won’t see my name anywhere in Muhammad’s story.

Nor does it link back to my original piece, which would make it clear who the author was. For attribution, Muhammad just mentions Louisville.com. Once.

(And judging by the hypertext ads in Muhammad’s story, the Courier-Journal does know how to code links.)

It’s not plagiarism, but it’s not journalism at its best either.

It was easier for the Courier-Journal to revise my quotes than to acknowledge my existence

My article (on the subject of Day’s Espresso & Coffee):

the best iced latte of the bunch (and tied with M.E. Swing in Washington, DC, for the best iced latte I’ve ever had, anywhere)

My article, as quoted by Larry Muhammad:

the best iced latte of the bunch and tied with M.E. Swing in Washington, D.C., for the best iced latte ever had, anywhere.

Notice the difference (other than the removal of the parentheses)? Muhammad or his editors removed “I’ve.” I’ve two big problems with that deletion:

• Someone decided it was easier to delete “I’ve” from the quote than to be bothered with better attribution.
• Day’s and Swing are great, but there’s a damn good chance in the long history of the tasty refreshing caffeinated beverage that better lattes have been consumed.

Citing just the publication is fine for a news story, but not for an opinion piece

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