‘The World Cup won’t help us’ This morning, I flicked over to the Guardian website to be met with a headline that is becoming all too common. Above a picture of black South Africans comes a cry of “The World Cup won’t help us”. The story then goes on to talk to lots of poor [...]
Continue reading about South Africa’s World Cup – why it can’t fix everything
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. [...]
Continue reading about Who will pay for travel writing? A potential compromise
Dear PR person. You were curious as to whether I had received your press release. I probably did. I probably didn’t read it either. Here’s why: 1. It’s not addressed to me If you’ve sent it to everyone on your mailing list in the hope that it fits something that someone, somewhere is writing [...]
Continue reading about 12 reasons why I deleted your press release without reading it
Is there money in travel writing? Jeremy Head has written a fascinating piece on the new travel technology news service, Tnooz.com. He goes through the fears that many travel writers are facing about the internet taking over from print. To put it in a nutshell, where will travel writers get their money from in the [...]
Continue reading about Is the internet really killing travel journalism?
Less coverage of green travel in travel media You don’t hear quite so much about green travel these days, do you? For a good few years, it was the flavour of the month in the travel media. Far too much attention was devoted to travelling without flying, environmentally-friendly hotels, carbon off-setting and other ‘innovations’ that [...]
Continue reading about Green travel: Did many travellers care in the first place?
The end of free news? News International proprietor Rupert Murdoch has signalled his intention to end the era of free content on the internet. He has not yet announced how he will do this, but it is likely that his newspaper websites will be introducing some sort of charges in the next year. This means [...]
Continue reading about Paid content on the internet: Will Murdoch’s plans succeed?