What Google Wave taught me about travel writing

wave1Well, my invitation to Google Wave showed up this morning (if you’re on Wave, here’s how to reach me). Wave is described as an online tool for real-time communication, but I’ve been following its development since this spring, and for me, it represents more than that.

Wave is something of a metaphor for the changes taking place in journalism, and specifically in travel writing.

I just returned from the Society of American Travel Writers annual conference in Guadalajara, Mexico, late yesterday. I participated in two panel discussions that dealt with the future of travel writing. SATW is the largest and most prestigious organization of travel writers, and for the last year, I’ve been honored to call myself a member of the group.

I brought up Wave at the end of one of my presentations, and mentioned the the way in which it combined e-mail, instant messaging, collaboration, and other as-yet undetermined functions, could change the way journalism is practiced.

But the truth is that when I logged on to Wave for the first time today, I realized that convergence has already happened. Maybe not in our minds — a majority of travel journalists, whose opinions I respect a great deal, still go to great lengths to point out the differences between, say, travel blogging and travel writing.

I can come up with a dozen important differences too, as a travel journalist.

But turn the equation around — look at this from the consumer’s perspective — and you find that people aren’t as discerning. Surveys suggest the playing field may be evening itself out, with online news sources rising in usage and mainstream media sources slipping. In other words, it’s all the same to the audience.

If that trend holds, then I think it’s also safe to say that another kind of convergence is going on: the one between journalism and public relations.

Audiences don’t seem as concerned about where their news is coming from, as long as it’s meeting their current information needs. It’s a far cry from a decade or two ago, when prestigious news organizations set the news agenda for America, and told us what was important.

One of the most revealing conversations I had about setting the agenda was with an editor for a prestigious newspaper, who told me she detested Google News because it allowed users to cherry-pick the news they thought was important.

“That’s our job,” she sniffed.

If a PR practitioner can write a compelling travel blog, and attract a real audience, then who’s to say it has any less credibility than something a salaried travel writer or blogger produces? (For a good example of a PR professional writing a lively travel blog, see Brian Ek’s Priceline blog, or Southwest’s body of work on its compelling corporate blog).

We as travel journalists care a great deal about the distinction between PR and “real” journalism, between blogging and writing. But where’s the evidence that readers put any less weight on a blog posting by Priceline or Southwest than they do on something I write?

Do travelers care if something was written in a newspaper or online, or appeared on the network news, as opposed to YouTube? I think they care less and less.

And that’s what Google Wave has taught me about travel writing: The differences are less important than ever.

Convergence isn’t the future. It has already happened.

Update: I’ve started a Wave on travel and customer service. If you’re on Wave, please join me.

(Photo: alifaan/Flickr Creative Commons)

  • http://gospain.about.com Damian

    I mainly agree, though unfortunately PR writing is rarely “compelling” in my opinion.

  • http://www.vacation-rental-info.com Terry Gronenthal

    Reading what the travel writer said about news distribution: ““That’s our job,” she sniffed.”… is akin to two dinosaurs talking: “Do you feel a draft?”

  • Julie Dunlea

    I agree it has already happened. I think that is why it seems more important than ever to use several sources. The days of the neutral fact-finding news are numbered, if not already gone.

  • ailinxu

    I am just a guy in desperate need of Google Wave Invitation, if you can help me.
    ailinxu@gmail.com

  • Chicky

    Right you are, Julie. See, that’s the distinction between PR and journalism. Travel journalists like Chris want to cover a variety of issues and because they do not represent any particular travel companies, they are free to punch heads where they need punching, without regard to who might be paying the bills.
    So we do need a variety of sources so we can see what’s generated when the writer owes something to a company with deep pockets and interests to protect.

  • Don

    Chris,
    Presume you read the Terms of Service and are comfortable with “By submitting, posting or displaying the Content, you give Google a worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through the Service for the sole purpose of enabling Google to provide you with the Service in accordance with its Privacy Policy.” You retain your copyright, they have the right to do anything they want with it for free.

  • Nicole

    I too have to agree that convergence is happening now. Convergence is what cloud computing is really all about. However, I think that the issue of PR vs real journalism and blogging vs writing is one of trust, or lack of trust, in the news industry.
    There was a time in the not too distant past when news was objective, investigative and relevant. Today, the bias in the mainstream media is well known and obvious, e.g. Fox is conservative; MSNBC is liberal. Investigative journalism seems to have fallen by the wayside. It’s hard to imagine a Watergate-like investigation in today’s corporate “news and entertainment” divisions. Would ABC investigate Disney or NBC investigate GE? Are GE customers, suppliers and friendly politicians also off limits? Even “facts” aren’t verified anymore. To see this trend, you only have to watch any of the 24 hour news stations where “guests” frequently pull “facts and figures” out of thin air and are never questioned about their sources by the anchors. (John Stewart, the comedian and not a journalist, had a hilarious piece on CNN’s fact-checking last night.) The newspaper media is not much better. Search Google News for any major US corporation and you’ll see what is essentially a company press release regurgitated as news, often without even changing the wording. As for relevance, the preponderance in the mainstream news media of “What is (insert celebrity name here) doing today” speaks for itself.
    While much of the above rant does not translate directly to travel writers, some does. Most travel writing I see today sounds more like PR than an objective review. (Present company excluded of course!) Are writers or editors afraid to publish something negative because they might offend a company, local tourism bureau, or advertiser? The other articles I see passed off as travel writing fall under the “how to get a good deal” category. While occasionally helpful, they are all too often just the same information repeated in different words year after year.
    So, is it any wonder the audience has turned to bloggers and other internet sources for what they perceive as less biased, more relevant and more current information? This is especially true in the travel industry. A YouTube video can show the cleanliness of a hotel room or the rude behavior of airline personnel better than any written review. The problem of course no one can be assured that any thing they read or see on the internet is factual, not photo-shopped or just plain faked. There is simply too much information out there for anyone, even large corporations, to vet all the internet sources. The result is that people choose to believe, watch and read what enforces their already held beliefs, but that’s a whole other rant.

  • Cynthia

    The problem with the direction we are going with online news sources is that many are not always the most accurate. Fact-checking is minimal in many instances, the content is not balanced, and people will go out of their way to find articles that validate already held positions. In the past, the media was about accuracy as much as circulation . . . articles were fact-checked and publications went to some lengths to balance their articles with both sides of an issue/story.

    Some people will go to Wikipedia and take what is said there as gospel truth, or they go to an online blog where they see an article and fail to consider if it is truthful or accurate. I cannot tell you how many times someone has forwarded an email, link, or actual article, to me . . . only to find when I check Snopes and other sources that the forward was riddled with inaccuracies.

    Just sayin’ . . .

  • deRuiter

    “The problem with the direction we are going with online news sources is that many are not always the most accurate.” Yep, you’re right! Think Dan Rather and his staff working for three years on the story of the legitimacy of the Bush National Guard papers, and having the bloggers on Little Green Footballs determine and demonstrate why the papers were forgeries in two hours.
    “….editor for a prestigious newspaper, who told me she detested Google News because it allowed users to cherry-pick the news they thought was important.“That’s our job,” she sniffed.”. THIS IS EXACTLY WHY WE NEED MORE MEDIA SOURCES, NOT SOME ELITIST CHOOSING WHAT THEY THINK WE SHOULD READ ABOUT TRAVEL. The more, the merrier, I love travel writers, travel bloggers, and just plane travelers who write about where they’ve traveled!

  • Millie

    You make some good points about the convergence, Chris. No one knows where we’re going right now – only that there is so much information bounced around it is head-spinning. When I research travel now, I look at all sorts of sources, most of them on the Web these days…..thoough some of the Web pages are online versions of print.
    As for titles, I remember more people than not called me a “travel agent” instead of a “travel editor.” Even way back when a lot of people didn’t know the difference.

  • Jeanne

    As regards the woman editor – newspaper readers already cherry-pick what they read. Some people only want the sports section while others only want the comics. But, I can’t get all the comics I want to read every day in the paper (Doonesbury, for one pretty tame example). I can think of non-discerning people who seem to post on every subject on the local tv station’s “comments” board – they don’t read the local paper, but only tv news. Aren’t they cherry-picking the already cherry-picked items that will fit into a 1/2 hour news broadcast?

    My husband is astounded at the breadth of information that I have on certain topics, and I, in return, am amazed what he knows and how he knows it. I know for sure that my local newspaper has nothing on travel, unless it’s an article in the Sunday “lifestyle” section, promoting Albuquerque or Cancun. Writers such as Chris are invaluable for the mechanics of travel (as are, of course, the contributions from the legions of educated individuals on this site).

    Convergence is here.

  • Christopher Elliott

    @Millie, thanks. I think you were one of only a few editors who “got it” and understood that we were headed into uncharted territory, which is exactly where we now find ourselves. And sooner than any of us thought.

    These are strange times.

  • Eric

    I hink the key point that matters to me is the motivation of the writer. If someone is being paid to write about a product, service or company, I want to know that and will filter that into my response to the comments. If someone is a PR person blogging about an industry she focuses on, I want to know if she is writing about her client or about her client’s competitors. But if she’s observing the industry from an inside perspective and she has interesting insights, there’s value.

  • Kelly

    Thankfully, I am no longer at the mercy of newspaper & magazine travel editors; the majority of them wouldn’t give me the time of day and now the tide has turned. With the limitless traveling writing outlets on the web, my articles are accepted and published.

    Out of all the newspaper editors whom I contacted, I must admit that the LA Times was always courteous and responsive. The worst two: the Sun-Sentinel travel editor in Ft. Lauderdale and the Star-Ledger’s travel editor in NJ.

  • Les

    Don’s posting above is significant. To me it says that Google has fully abandoned its “Don’t Be Evil” (?) motto.

    It also suggests that the opportunity to publish and the chance of earning a living from your writing have also parted company.

  • http://www.tourismcurrents.com Sheila Scarborough

    I have less and less patience (and my sympathy well is also drying up) when it comes to the “sniffers.” People either start getting their heads around this stuff or they’re gonna get their professional clocks cleaned.

    And that’s the way it is….

    I have a hard time enjoying pure “writing conferences” anymore because many of the attendees don’t have any sense of curiosity or excitement about the Web’s potential for their craft. I’d rather go to a geek/tech conference where they understand communicating (and some of them are pretty doggone good text writers, too.)

  • Jarrad Malamed

    Love your blog, and if you have any more google wave invites…I would very much appreciate it? Thanks so much – Jarrad Jarradm@gmail.com

  • http://www.davidsanger.com David Sanger

    Chris: You say “Wave is something of a metaphor for the changes taking place in journalism, and specifically in travel writing.” and the discussion has been solely about changes in travel writing.

    As for Wave itself as a tool, have you actually tried? Do you think it has any promise for collaborative preparation of stories/multimedia pieces?

    Perhaps it would be worth starting a travel writing Wave to see how it would work. I did that with photography, but the Wave now has over 350 members and has become unwieldy; fewer members is obviously better and collaboration is one of the advertised advantages,

    davidsanger@googlewave.com

  • http://thebrooklynnomad.com Andrew

    Great piece Chris!

    It is indeed a strange time for news and where people get their information about travel. As a travel writer, I find both travel magazines & newspapers just as interesting and informative as smaller and lesser known travel bloggers.

    Bottom line is that if the source can provide me with what I need, can write properly, and provide the pertinent details I need, then it is a good source for yours truly.

    Best,
    Andrew
    TheBrooklynNomad.com

  • http://www.blogsouthwest.com Paula Berg

    Chris – this article is so beautiful, it made me want to cry. I think you really captured the spirit of the evolving media space…from the consumer’s point of view. Then, if that wasn’t enough…you described our blog as “compelling.” Day = Made.

    Can’t wait to get my Google Wave invitation…

    Paula Berg
    Southwest Airlines

  • http://hodgespart.com Caroline

    Great post, Chris. The day of the gatekeeper (whether it’s an editor OR a PR person “spinning”) is over. Good PR people recognize that we can’t simply push a single product – on editors or consumers. Equally, good product managers recognize that they can’t simply post marketing copy to a blog and expect customers to respect it. Tansparency has become paramount and PR people, brand managers, editors, bloggers, are relinquishing control (if we’re smart). Elliott.org is a good example in reverse. I’d content that although you, Chris, are a respected journalist, the blog has become a community not just for that reason, but because you’re transparent and real and demand the same from the brands you talk about. THAT carries more weight than a title – blogger or editor or whatever one might be “sniffing” at.

  • http://www.travelblather.com Jeremy Head

    I don’t know that I agree totally about the blurring distinction between say a press release and a piece of journalism. As a journo myself I get inundated with press releases – and 95% of them are blatantly pushing a product. Convergence is taking place – and the way companies are introducting corporate blogs is a great example of that. But it will be some time yet before the vast majority of PR people really ‘get’ communicating directly with customers rather remorselessly pushing product at the media. I’ve blogged myself a lot about the way that the net is changing the way travel writers earn a living – but there’s a similar quantum shift taking place in PR too.

  • http://www.travelblather.com Jeremy Head

    PS: It was indeed a good post… but being a Brit, it didn’t move me to tears!

  • Outtanames999

    So many ironies at work here.

    For one, at the risk of stating the obvious, most news has always come from PR. About 70% of “news” began as a press release issued by somebody. So what’s so new about that convergence?

    All obsolete technologies become art forms. Thus we will hear more and more the lament about “good” journalism which will become increasingly extinct as citizen journalism takes over – at least for the next while. At some point, we’ll get fed up with it and the pendulum will swing back.

    For another, as their business models crash, even the mainstream media are getting worse. Every day, a greater percentage of newspaper stories come from the wire services, not the paper’s own reporters. So much for “quality”. See how the lament works?

    And for still another, as we end up with fewer journalists, they will have to work harder, but being the essentially “lazy” types that they are, they will come to rely even more on PR people who do the journalists job for them, often providing stories that are picked up word for word and put under the journalist’s byline.

    At the end of the day though, good writing is good writing regardless of whence it cometh.