Blogosphere debate
Jeremy Head has written a characteristically interesting post on whether travel content that has been paid for by a company can ever be objective.
As part of the debate, he references Matthew Teller’s proposal about PR agencies and tourist boards paying travel writers for articles rather than the publications they are published in.
How travel writers can earn money: an idea
Reading through, I was struck by a compromise. It’s not one I’m 100% comfortable with, but I’m playing Devil’s advocate. It goes a little like this:
- The PR company, hotel, tour operator or tourist board hosts the travel writer on their visit. This happens already, and is no great secret.
- The travel writer then writes a small article or blog post for the PR company’s website sharing his thoughts on the trip and the destination.
- For doing this article/ blog post, the travel writer is paid a fee by the PR company.
- The travel writer then tries to sell – or chooses to give away – a separate story to one of the publications he or she writes for. As he or she would do normally.
- In the article for Publication X, the writer and publication should still disclose that the writer was the guest of the tourist board. (Sadly, too few publications make such disclosures).
PR companies and selective hosting
PR companies tend to be rather selective about who they host on group or individual press trips anyway. They will rarely provide flights, accommodation, meals, activities etc for a writer who has not got a commission.
Separate commissions
Under the above scenario, very little changes from an ethical perspective. The commission to write for the company blog and the commission to write for Publication X are entirely separate. How the writer goes about obtaining commission X is a matter of personal choice.
Is it worth writing for Publication X for free in return for getting the assistance that allows the writer to gain material that he can possibly sell elsewhere – as well as the fee for writing for Company X’s blog? Perhaps.
Reducing cost of a trip
Some writers already use a variation of this, myself included. I have a couple of outlets that don’t pay very much, but it’s useful to write for them so that I can obtain assistance from tourist boards. I’ll get a very small fee from the low-paying outlet, but writing there allows me to keep the cost of my trip down and earn good money writing about it for other outlets.
Problems with the compromise
Potential problems with my suggested scenario? Well, there are a few:
- PRs decide that the travel writers are middlemen and cut them out. But would travel editors accept copy straight from a PR?
- Would this suck even more money out of the market for travel writers, ensuring that NO publications pay for travel content?
- Would this take us even further down the road where the only places being written about are the ones with a hefty marketing budget?
- Well, it just doesn’t seem quite right, does it? I really don’t like the idea of giving away any work for free, irrespective of the benefits that can be gained from it elsewhere.
Writers, PRs, editors… what do you think? Feel free to share your thoughts below by leaving a comment.
Tags: marketing, media, online travel, PR, travel media, Travel Writing
Absolutely. Your suggestion is an interesting one, but he who pays the piper calls the tune… do you want PR people to have even MORE sway over what you write?
There’s a simple solution. Let’s all go into PR!