Killing Batteries

If you’ve got the stomach for it, I’ve posted yet another bitter rant about newspaper work over at This Is Why I Love Minneapolis.

Yeah, yeah, I’m posting twice this week, so just get over it already. Take your non-mouse hand, reach up and close your mouth before something flies in there and dies.

This relative flurry of posting is partly to make up for my rare, if ever, post frequency while I’m in Romania for four weeks in May and partly because I’m consumed in a stuttering rage of pissed offtitude!! If I hadn’t already launched my stress toy out my 26th story window during last week’s anti-travel writer BS, I’d be liquefying it right now as I transform into the Incredible Freelance Writer Hulk. Yeeeaarrrrgggjackhole!!

The incapacitating feelings of wrath that I’m experiencing right now are heightened because I feel obligated to be pissed off on behalf of every established and aspiring freelance travel writer in regards to the self-righteously obtuse comments recently made by New York Times travel editor Stuart Emmrich about their policy of not accepting stories that were written on the strength of any complimentary services (airline tickets, hotels, meals, etc.). Furthermore, he highlighted a point that I wasn’t aware of previously, that being the Times won’t accept any stories from a freelancer who has ever accepted a comp in modern history! Are you f*cking kidding me??

Well, to be fair, there were caveats. Like say the freelancer in question was bitten on the face three times by a Burmese King Cobra, in which case the Times is willing to overlook that the freelancer didn’t crawl out of the jungle, down the nearest village, hand over his emergency c-note to a black market money-changer so as to pay for the antidote out-of-pocket.

This is an old peeve of mine that has intensified as I’ve become crabbier and devoid of all empathy in the past few weeks, but it’s being especially tweaked because it’s coming from someone that I’d hoped would know better. Further to Mr. Emmrich’s comments, in case a hapless freelancer has any questions or needs clarification about possible loopholes, the Times has posted their ethics handbook online. Fair enough. For most forms of journalism, particularly for salaried employees, you gotta have something like this. But when dealing with freelancers, particularly in the arena of travel where research expenses are prohibitively high, you’ve gotta find a middle ground.

I don’t know what the Times pays for one-off articles, but I know the national average paid by newspapers is $200-300. I’ll give the NYT the benefit of the doubt, since they’re the Times and presumably have a little bit more money to throw around, and just guess that they pay $400-500 per piece. (Anyone that knows better, please comment below.) Nevertheless, this compensation doesn’t come anywhere near covering the expenses of, say, a five night trip to Copenhagen ($1,500-2,000), never mind the freelancer’s time investment (let’s call it six days of travel and two days of writing), which should be, at a minimum, $25 per hour (or $1,000 per week), what with the self-employment tax and other cruel penalties freelance writers have to deal with like costly individual health insurance that I swear I’ll look into just as soon as I get back from Romania, mom.

I point this out this no-brainer fact, because on the subject of pitching the NYT, Emmrich innocently offers that “The Travel section needs reporters to identify these stories and ferret them out, not people who just want to write up their vacation experiences.”

Oh really? Does it get a little exasperating that all you receive in your submissions inbox are hacks traveloguing their trip to Colonial Williamsburg? Are you wondering why most of these submissions are unprintable, clichéd amateur nonsense? Well since you seem to be genuinely baffled, I’ll tell you: it’s because any idiot can see that it’s mathematically impossible to make a living pitching to you. You can’t expect a professional writer to pay for expenses out-of-pocket for all of the trips they take year round, and then turn around and pay them the shit fee you pay for one-off articles. Maybe a hungry newbie will eat a $700 one-time loss for a NYT byline, but not a professional who has the rest of the year(s) to think about.

So, now that you’ve alienated 98% of the people that have the skills and qualifications to produce a NYT-worthy piece with your sanctimonious ban on comps, please don’t act surprised when all you receive are missives fired off by ambitious stay-at-home moms. (Not that’s there’s anything wrong with that. I love stay-at-home moms, particularly when they stay at home with their shrieking two year olds, rather than sitting next to me on a trans-Atlantic flight.)

To sum up, you can’t have it both ways. Either you’re gonna have to accept stories that involved comps - and have faith that the writer has the capacity to objectively review a comped service - or start reimbursing freelancers for their travel expenses. Or pay an upfront fee large enough that the writer actually has something left to buy groceries when all is said and done. We’re talking upwards of $1,500 for a short domestic destination piece and $3,500 or more for international destination features. If you expect everyone else around you to bow down to your rules on comps, you’re going to have to start putting out.

Better yet, cut the diplomatic crap, stop pretend-coaching potential NYT submitters and own up to the fact that in a perfect world you’d rather not deal with freelance submissions at all. This way you don’t have to spend one morning every six weeks slogging through the submissions inbox, deleting all those stories about Orlando and Philadelphia’s cheese steak stands, and people won’t waste time and energy sending those stories to you in the first place. After all, as Mr. Emmrich happily admits in the same piece, he has an overflowing pool of gifted, NYT salaried writers on hand that he can tap if he’s ever in a jam and no one can deny that they’re a lot easier to work with than a hodgepodge of time-consuming, one-off freelancer pieces.

Finally, Mr. Emmrich, with all due respect, clearly you’ve enjoyed the security and bulging paychecks of the NYT for a little too long to be authoritatively disseminating sage wisdom on the subject of freelance travel writing. The next time you feel compelled to lecture aspiring freelance travel writers, it would behoove you to emerge from your insulated, salaried Editorial Fortress of Solitude and bring yourself up to speed on the realities of freelance travel writing of the current century. Thank you.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have business errands to run that cannot be done until I’ve pancaked over the alarming green tone my skin has taken on and replaced the torn rags that were perfectly presentable Old Navy clothes when I started composing this diatribe.

Due to my grueling schedule of world class scuba diving and seven course meals here in Micronesia, I’ve only just learned that nominations for the annual Travvies blog awards opened last week! There’s only one more week to nominate me! Run, run!!!

For the second year in a row, the Travvies are being run by Upgrade: Travel Better, which is good news, because that means he can’t be nominated and boy do I hate competition.

If there’s any doubt about how to nominate me as much as possible, please read the rules. Otherwise, please feel free to stuff the ballot box for me in the following two categories:

Best Travel Blog
Best Single-Author Travel Blog

Now I lavishly whored myself out last year for the Travvies and I was handily defeated by some yahoo calling himself ‘The Cranky Flier’. My loathing for him would be all consuming if he didn’t turn out to be a really nice guy. God, I hate nice guys. So difficult to loathe…

So seeing as how Cranky is already dominating the nominations, and he’s still flush with pride from having been recently named as one of the ‘50 most powerful blogs in the universe’ or some such ego-trip, I think it’s time to take this guy down a few pegs. In the nicest possible way. Love you, Brett! You jackhole.

So please take 30 seconds out of your busy blog reading schedule to nominate me for both the Best Travel Blog and the Best Single-Author Travel Blog categories. In fact, I’ll make it easier for you and not run this post over 1000 words like usual, so you’ll have several spare minutes to nominate me and any other blogs you see fit while you’re at it. Except that Cranky guy.

Oh, he’s a little cranky, is he? Buddy, I’m full-on pissed off! Put that in your carryon bag and stow it!!

Sadly, this is only the beginning. After the nomination phase, there’s final voting phase, so I’m afraid I’ll be bugging you about this again soon. Think of it this way, the sooner you nominate me, the longer it’ll be before you have to go back and vote for me. See how easy I’m making it for you? One might even say I’m saint-like if one didn’t already know that I’m on the Vatican’s blacklist. Popes are so sensitive sometimes.

If so, would you care to share the tale?

I’ve been assigned the dubious task of writing an article about what to do if you’re arrested abroad (my editor seemed to think that I’d know a little something about this) and I’d like a few anecdotes to include in the piece.

This is for an American audience, so I can only take submissions from Americans.

I’d like to hear where you were, what happened, how it was resolved and, most importantly, what resources you used to get to that resolution.

Events that occurred in Mexico especially welcome, since that’s (by far) the place where Americans are most often arrested. Also desirable are any stories set in Third World countries and places where there is no US Embassy.

I’m also looking for a few anecdotes about being detained and intimidated into a bribe situation, which actually is something I could write about at great length from personal experience, but I’d like to hear others’ stories too.

I’m trying to crank this out in the next few days. If you’d like to help, please email me at the address below. Anonymity, if you so wish, is guaranteed. Thanks!