Travel news: my sources

People often ask me where I find the travel news that becomes the grist for this blog’s metaphorical mill.

The short answer: primary sources.

For example, instead of riffing off a Reuters or AP story about airline baggage statistics, I like to link straight to the Department of Transportation Web site — the same source used by the wire-service reporters.

There are a lot of reasons for this. The news stories have a tendency of expiring or being firewalled a few days later. But looking at the original source often reveals something that a reporter may have overlooked. Something important, maybe.

So how do I find out when there is news to report? Some federal agencies, like the Federal Aviation Administration, will send you press releases by e-mail. I bookmark other official sites and visit often, just like any other reporter.

But the best tips come from readers like you. When you’re sending a newsletter out to 35,000 subscribers a week, people are bound to hear things. I encourage them to write in with their experiences.

You wouldn’t believe the stories I’ve gotten from readers of this blog.

Finally, I follow the other bloggers and news organizations. Here are the blogs I read. Here are some of the sites that I’ve bookmarked. It’s not a complete list, but it gives you a pretty good idea of where I hang out online.

I scan the news quickly using Google’s new reader, which I highly recommend. I subscribe to about 200 news feeds. It takes roughly 10 minutes to review them every morning — for best results, switch to “List View” — and I peruse them ever hour or so during the day, as they’re updated.

Which sources do I monitor the closest? The bloggers and columnists who don’t just follow the news and comment on it, but who break and shape news. It is easy to aggregate and regurgitate, but far more challenging to actually find something interesting and then tell people what they should think about it.

Unfortunately, there are very few people in the travel space who can actually do that. I have the utmost of respect for them, and I aspire to be more like them in my blog.

Got any favorite news sources? Share them with me in comments below or send me a note.

Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

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