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Unfair and unbalanced?

July 13, 2006

Should travel bloggers play by the same rules as reporters for a mainstream news organization? I’ve wondered about that for the better part of the last week, both for professional and personal reasons.

First the professional: I’m researching a story about business travel blogs and have been interviewing the most influential bloggers. They’re a terrific group of people. But few of them are journalists in the traditional sense of the word. Nor do they necessarily feel bound by the rules of journalism — tell both sides of the story, be fair and impartial, etc.

Do they need to be?

I don’t think so. (In fact, I think it helps that they aren’t.)

One of the things that makes a travel blog so compelling is that it’s written from a point of view. It’s opinionated. It doesn’t read like a research paper. It isn’t dispassionate, like the average newspaper story or wire service dispatch.

Take that away, and you turn the travel blog into something dull and worthless.

The personal reasons? I’ve gotten into some trouble for two posts of my own in which I didn’t follow the traditional rules of journalism.

In one, I took Flyertalk to task for what I perceived to be censorship. In another, I challenged Expedia for making its executives difficult to reach by e-mail.

And that raises another interesting question: Should a reporter who has a travel blog be expected to play by the rules of journalism on his blog — or by the rules of blogging?

What do you think?

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.

5 comments

  • James Gilden

    Chris – I think you’re walking a fine line when you try to be both responsible journalist and blogger. In my six months of doing a travel blog for the LA Times, I found myself pulling punches on the blog that I might not have had I not been worried about how it would reflect on my reputation as a journalist. I think in the end it made for a better blog. I’m not sure anyone’s interests are served when bloggers perpetuate rumors or unconfirmed facts. I’m not sure most readers will distinguish between the Jim Gilden on the blog and the one they read in the newspapers.

  • Tim

    I think you can be a journalist and a blogger as long as someone can easily tell which page they are on (Chris the Journalist page or Chris the Blogger page). This page, for example, could have a disclaimer at the top saying that this is your personal comments and thoughts, not your regular column(s).

  • Andrea Ponzi

    Do we honestly believe that journalists all have such high standards – really?

    If that were the case, we’d never have an Enron, or an Iraq war. We probably wouldn’t have had Round 2 of George Bush either.

    In fact, I think what we call journalism today, with some notable exceptions, has become more like pompous, kick back sullied travel writing than ever before.

    I’ll never forget Lisa Hughes (publisher of Conde Naste) arrogantly (and laughably) telling me what she thought she knew about Asia, a place she has watched mostly from the far reaches of a Manhattan office while I have lived and breathed this region for the last 15 years.

    And in the same way it was hard not to feel disgusted all through the dotcom era especially when Wallstreet brokers played up the longest of long shots such as China dotcom, like it was the second coming of Christ or something. Living out here, you know better – of course.

    Ditto the war we are still in. How comfortable it must feel to be so ignorant and yet so far away and so cushioned from the pain, the problems and the reprecussions of one’s faulty knowledge; whether it’s an innaccurate business, war or travel plan.

    Looking at the media as a whole, where’s the investigation? It’s about capturing the moment as reflected in the words of the celebrity CEO, the celebrity military leader, the celebrity journalist, the celebrity this and the celebrity that. There’s so little of the spirit of 1970s journalism left today, in fact it’s about the writer becoming a celebrity as well. And what better theater does that occur in than war?

    No, investigative reporting seems to have become the forte of interns if recent NY Times scandals are any indication, the big names seem more interested in getting the “big” Oprah-esque interview. And to get the right interview these days, you need to be cautious, be nice and say all the right things, or else you won’t be invited back.

    And as you well know, the media makes large corporate donors to large PACs (at least in the US) which underwrite large political campaigns. Yes, the media, whether it’s war, business or travel writing seems to be all about the junket.

    It’s all converging into one big, dark hole, but the internet could be at least partially the consumer’s salvation.

    I don’t think that many bloggers make great 1970′s style journalists. I also don’t think that most travel bloggers make consistently good travel writers. But I do believe it has opened a sphere (or an ellipse) that challenges the integrity of what is currently and constantly in print and on television, and if nothing else, gets us all thiking for ourselves a bit again.

    And that can only be a good thing.

  • http://BangkokAtoZ.com Mekhong Kurt

    While I’m not sure I agree with everything Andrea says, she certainly has written a well-thought-out post, one that provokes thought as well — and, to use her own words, “. . . that can only be a good thing.”

    I do an online column my

  • http://BangkokAtoZ.com Mekhong Kurt

    While I’m not sure I agree with everything Andrea says, she certainly has written a well-thought-out post, one that provokes thought as well — and, to use her own words, “. . . that can only be a good thing.”

    I do an online column myself and have long been plagued by just where I draw the line. In some stories, I deliberately am presenting my own point of view, while in others I mean always to be factual. Much of the time that’s reasonably clear-cut — but not always.

    For the record, I have been a professional member of the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand (and plan to rejoin).

    Even in my opinion pieces, I try to keep two goals always in mind: (1.) to back up my opinion, especially a negative one, with facts, and, (2.) when there is a reasonable differing opinion, to mention it — give it equal time, as it were.

    The second goal is the harder for me to achieve. After all, what constitutes “reasonable” is itself a matter of my opinion when I’m the one deciding. I tend to overcompensate to avoid being labeled unfair.

    Do I always succeed? Nope. And readers aren’t the least bit shy about taking my butt to task. I don’t mean the reader who has a different, unsupported view who merely rants. I mean readers who are thoughtful and in a civil way point out some error I’m committed in reporting or times when I demonstrably have dropped the ball on the fairness issue, dropped in a way a reader can reasonably (there’s that word again!) expect of me, regardless of the type of story I’m writing.

    It happens I’ve spent maybe 15-16 hours yesterday and today browsing through this blog, Chris — I want to write about it myself so my readers are aware of it (which I wasn’t until yesterday), and in the scores of your posts I’ve read, I give you plenty high marks all around. Which is why I’m willing to devote so much time to, well, researching it is the best way to put it: I want to write with some authority.

    I also am greatly interested in your readers’ comments, though sometimes some readers do stray off-topic, in my view.

    Again, a tip o’ the hat to Andrea, as well . . .

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