As newspapers slash budgets for freelancers and magazines cut expense budgets, writers have to find ways to get those food and travel articles without compromising their integrity.
Travel and food writers are typically invited on press trips to locations that are looking for publicity. The resort, attraction or event hosts provide the travel arrangements, food, overnight accommodations, and tour guides whose job it is to show only what the hosts want them to see.
Hang out your shingle as a food writer and you'll get letters of invitation to dine at restaurants, stay at luxury hotels with world-class cuisine, tour wineries and food factories, and attend food expos.
With all this free travel, food and luxurious rooms, how can a writer remain objective?
First, recognize that all this free stuff allows you to be the writer you were born to be. If your local newspaper wants travel pieces but won't pay gas mileage much less meals and more, take the press trips and be discerning about what you believe.
If a trip will get you to a location where you can find several stories, take the trip. Your written pieces will depend on the interviews you gather up, the photos you shoot, and your own investigations into the real story begin the winery, restaurant or luxury liner.
Avoid sounding like a hack, er, publicity professional. Never write what you are told by the person or location paying for the press trip. Double check all facts independently. This will allow you to write your articles without someone finding out three months later that it was all a lie. Check every fact, and do not use quotes from handouts of talking points.
Recently an online school's publicity fiasco came to my attention. The owners had persuaded a few business and education writers to promote the school as a great value. Two weeks after this promotion hit the papers and internet, the school has decided to close in four weeks. The articles that have been published widely make the writers look like idiots, and will certainly make it more difficult for them to get future assignments. Think what a different story it would have been if the writers had interviewed students, contacted creditors, looked into the background of the owners, and were skeptical of the line they were fed.
Certainly if you are invited to a dinner at a new restaurant because the owner is hoping you'll write articles about it for newspapers, regional magazines and touristy websites, you need to double check everything the owner tells you.
Call the chef the next morning for follow-up questions, talk to diners in the restaurant while you are there, research the chef's background, and investigate the owner's success or failure with previous businesses. This is the only way to have your dinner and write about it fairly too, if your editor won't okay expenses.
Of course, the best situation is when the periodical is paying fees and expenses for travel, food, and other bills occurred during the research and writing of the article. But when writers find themselves stuck between paying for their own expenses and only covering local events and destinations, or taking press trips and other freebies and writing for a variety of publications, don't feel you have to sacrifice your career for your integrity. Just understand that money spent on travel, food, and tickets to events does not buy you. You can still maintain an objectivity (many do) while writing your articles by doing independent research and remaining skeptical about all the good news handed to you on a silver platter.
Sign up for your copy of "10 Things Editors Want You to Know" at http://www.food-writing.com and you'll also receive the only ezine that focuses on food writing and food writers. Pamela White is the author of "Make Money as a Food Writer in Six Lessons" available at Amazon.com - http://tinyurl.com/yp748y
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