Comments

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  Dick Jordan February 7, 2011 at 7:13pm

  Looks like Arianna has proved that there is money in blogging, getting all of the "exposure" that she could have desired, in the process.
  
  Will AOL now pay writers a nickel a story (a huge increase from Hu-Po rates)? Will it allow travel writers to accept free or discounted travel?
  
  Stay tuned.
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  Donna M. Airoldi February 7, 2011 at 7:00pm

  I'm with Judy. Exposure doesn't pay the mortgage.
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  Lucy Beebe Tobias February 7, 2011 at 6:56pm

  Amen, Judy, "show me the money"
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  Judy Wells February 7, 2011 at 5:09pm

  Just how much "exposure" does anyone need? I'd rather have paying assignments, thank you very much.
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  Donna Hull February 7, 2011 at 5:05pm

  Well said, Allan. I wonder how Huffington's writers feel about all that free exposure now. Adrianna's laughing all the way to the bank. However, will AOL follow suit and adopt the "we don't pay for content" strategy now that they've purchased Huffington Post?
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  Allan Lynch February 7, 2011 at 2:45pm

  At 6:30 am as I lay in bed checking my flights, I thought how screwed up have we become, taking technology and not people to bed with us…

   

  So The Huffington Post has been sold. One tech-billionaire on the morning news was really excited and claimed this was further proof of the death of print. Except that he then went to say the brilliance of Huffington’s model was to aggregate other people’s information and news under her brand.

   

  Given that more and more print publications are putting up pay walls, reducing the amount of ‘free’ material on the web, I wonder if Huffington’s brilliance is in knowing when to jump ship and cash in.

   

  And let’s not forget that AOL’s history isn’t littered with insightful – or profitable – media buys.

   

  I wonder if all those people who wrote for free for Huffington will now get a little thank you cheque from Ariana? That would probably be a bookkeeping nightmare, so maybe not. Oh well, they can take comfort that they allowed an already wealthy woman in a down economy to move on with her life.

   
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  Ed Wetschler January 31, 2011 at 4:37am

  If you're a member of the Atlantic Caribbean or Northeast chapter of SATW -- or if you aren't a member but want to see what we're up to -- join the new group for the June chapter meeting. We'll be posting updates about Pittsburgh and professional development classes, videos and photos of the city, and more.
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  Hal Peat January 21, 2011 at 6:04pm

  Is there really a one-size-fits-all template that works for clients and rates?  Do you charge a multinational corporation on the same basis and pay scale as a small recently opened hotel or other travel industry entity?  Do you take into consideration that your own portfolio is not as extensive as someone who's been onstaff full-time at a huge Manhattan PR firm for years and years, and this PR project represents a nice break for you - so maybe you should in turn be flexible and provide that small client a break too, in terms of pricing?  So I think there may be variables there too.  I'll leave aside the 800 lb. gorilla in the room of such a discussion, being the great recession, which has created this whole wider dimension of potential clients who are not in the market for paying retainers and full-industry rates but still need some publicity functions fulfilled.  For me, at least, that's where the challenge has been recently in finessing a realistic arrangement 
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  Donna M. Airoldi January 21, 2011 at 5:16pm

  Actually, I have seen a leveling off of falling rates, and a couple places I write for recently increased their pay. It's still not great compared to days of yore when I could limit assignments to only those that paid $1/word or more, but it's an improvement. But you're right, Allan, I should have written that "I can't afford to not take those jobs until I can secure more regular assignments for publications that still pay professional rates." Now, that opinion will probably generate some comments on what qualifies as professional rates or not...

   

  As for the terms travel writer versus travel journalist, I think it depends on what part of the industry one is covering and how.  I started my career working for a trade, but the editor considered it a real newspaper and ran it as such. We had beats and were required to break news about the industry, and that certainly didn't mean being the first to write about a new hotel opening or remodeling.  We did occasionally get to go on press trips and write travel destination features (which I too call travel writing, not journalism), but it wasn't often and he doled them out only as rewards for doing well covering the news end of our industry.