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Writing the Journey: June 1999

"Travel Writer/ Travel Editor"

Howard Shapiro
Travel Editor
Philadelphia Inquirer
hshapiro@phillynews.com

I will explore the sorts of writing and articles we look for when we buy freelance pieces. I will cover :

  1. Our ban on accepting stories written from trips that have been sponsored, in any way, by the travel industry or governments. I'll talk about the controversy this ban has created among travel writers and public relations firms, and offer our reasons for enforcing the ban. I'll give an example or two of the pressures we face from people who do not see a good reason for our ban,
  2. The Inquirer's failure to commission travel stories. I'll speak about the financial restraints we work under, what we generally pay and why putting travel sections together in our newspaper (and many others) is more a case of manna from heaven than of going fishing for material.
  3. The state of freelance writing -- at least the freelance writing that comes to me each day over the transome. It's not really very good, and I'll talk about why. We tend toward pieces that don't read as though they're chapters from guidebooks, yet so much of the travel writing we're offered is straight from the guidebook school of pedestrian writing and organization. I'll explore the theory that a good travel piece is largely perception laced with facts, not the other way around. I'll offer some examples of writing that sold us on a story, and some examples of writing that turned us away from a piece. I'll bring a few unopened freelance submissions and share the leads for an "instant opinion." (Here, we can also take opinions from the audience.) In truth, that's the way we often determine whether a piece has a chance of being good -- by its first few paragraphs. If we need to work with it too much to make readers interested, the hell with it; what else came today in the mail? On the other hand, if someone has a very good, unusual idea and the execution is shoddy, we may decide to spend days working on it to get it into shape.
Howard Shapiro
Travel Editor
Philadelphia Inquirer
hshapiro@phillynews.com
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Updated May 23, 1999