@Kevin – Quite agree: it would be naive to think advertisers want to join in a national conversation. But that wasn’t my point. I was talking about editorial. As I am old-fashioned in thinking people like long-form feature writing, I’m also old-fashioned enough to believe that newspapers are better when they are editorial-led, rather than advertiser-led. Property aside, I can’t think of another part of newspaper publishing that is so completely in thrall to advertisers than travel. But why? The lit pages (I disagree w you) aren’t there to show how clever everybody is – they serve a very clear specific function for a very clear specific market – and that has next-to-nothing to do with what advertisers want. It’s all about what the editors want (not need) to publish, what writers want to say and what readers like to read. It all dovetails. Same with the sports pages. Same with the food pages. Same with the business pages. So what went wrong in travel?

“Readers browse the travel pages – or at least used to – because they are curious about places to go for their next trip.”
Do they? I think they just want to read about other parts of the world. It’s interesting to ponder other cultures, and always nice to dream. Do people read restaurant critics because they’re looking for somewhere to eat next weekend? I don’t think so. I think they want to hear what the expert writer has to say, how they’ve summarised the meal, and whether the place gets praised or panned. They know the journo visited anonymously – there’s a thrill in finding out what happened. Nothing to do with advertisers, or real life choices; it’s just a darn good read and a worthwhile investment of 5 minutes’ reading time. So what went wrong in travel?

@Jeremy. Nice try – but deception ain’t good, partly because it’s not sustainable!

I am not suggesting for a second that the trade media is corrupt. I’ll leave that for others to suggest. :-)

To your second point, it would be naive surely to think that advertisers decide they want to appear in the travel sections of newspapers because they want to fuel a national conversation about holidays. That’s rubbish. They want to peddle products and ideally want to be featured alongside relevant – and hopefully, positive – coverage of their service or destination.

The literary pages are indeed about showing how clever the paper and its writers are. It’s a different mindset entirely.

Readers browse the travel pages – or at least used to – because they are curious about places to go for their next trip.

In terms of the conversation in travel… unfortunately for newspapers the conversation is far more likely to happen on forums, blogs, destination sites, social networks, etc.

Newspapers are far too preachy (one-way dialogue) for an audience that, in reality and as research has shown, actually wants to engage with other consumers and, therefore, not be spoken to.

It’s a shame because travel writing as an artform (and we all know there has been some glorious writing in the past) is in decline because 1) newspapers are not willing to pay for it because it doesn’t make money (newspaper don’t exist for the love, do they!?!) and 2) the attention span of web-savvy consumers means that the long-form is being replaced by a desire for snippets of info, quick reviews, price, etc, not the 1,500-word colourful treatise.

Bit gloomy really.

“Any journalist worth their salt would know when they’re being fed a line … and (more to the point) any editor worth theirs would be able to detect a whitewash instantly”

In dismissing the idea that quality is tied to particular funding models, you reduce everything to the calibre of journalist and editor. That is rather nice. What you suggest isn’t perfect, but if it represents a way to keep good writing alive under extreme pressure then so be it.

@Mark – yep, me too; I know of one case where an excellent travel journalist of unimpeachable integrity had a piece published for ‘free’ but in fact received a fee from the relevant tourist board’s PR representative at home, without the editor knowing. Deception ain’t good, but I don’t see a problem with the model – as long as the PR doesn’t get to vet the copy first…

@Kevin – thanks for kind words. Well aware that trade is even more corrupt than consumer! Your last point is interesting, though. Why does travel journalism have to be a source of ‘research’ for travel products/destinations? The literary/review pages of a newspaper, to take one example, are only tangentially about suggesting ‘products’ to buy: they are more about fuelling a national conversation by giving exposure to informed, insightful writing from professionals who know what they’re talking about. What happened to the conversation in travel? What happened to great writing for its own sake? The internet is for research; reading a newspaper is food for the mind. Or should be.

@Marryam – nice to hear from you! Quite agree. When editors start rejecting copy from journos who recycle PR puffery, and instead welcome decent writing (regardless of who pays for it), maybe standards will start to rise…

I would only mention that trade journalists (and their masters) have been taking the shilling from tourist boards to write about them for many a long year, and readers (other parts of the industry) do not bat an eyelid.

But, then again, some might argue that perhaps they should care.

Something else not really mentioned above is that newspapers – and the providers of their original content – have a problem in that consumers see the mainstream media way down the pecking order of places to go to first when researching travel products or destinations.