Travel Blog

The Miami Herald yesterday introduced its new travel editor and - surprise - she's also the Home & Design editor.

(Note: I did not apply, so the following is not sour grapes.)

Newspapers traditionally have paid little attention to who oversees their travel sections. Travel editor has always been, of the four specialty section positions, the only one that is seen as requiring no expertise. A Food editor needs to know about cooking and nutrition; a Home editor about architecture and design; even Fashion has its own vocabulary. But putting out the travel section has always been regarded as something that anyone can do, which is why the job, historically, was given to veteran reporters as a reward for years of faithful service.

Today, instead of being moved into the job, people are being given it in addition to their current one - even if the two have nothing in common (or, as in this case, are diametrically opposed). For a few years the Baltimore Sun travel editor was also the book editor, which made a little sense, as there is a great body of travel literature (but don't tell the editors of newspapers that). Then the paper eliminated both positions.

It may seem impractical, at a time when newspapers are shrinking in size and declining in quality, to insist on strict standards for such a lowly position. But maybe this is exactly what newspapers need to do to lure readers back. Why not look for someone who has not just traveled, but lived in another country? Someone who speaks a language other than English? While everything else in the paper is going local, why not reserve at least one section for the worldly and the cosmopolitan? When I was a travel editor, I always saw my section as not just an escape, but a complement to the rest of the newspaper, a place for people to be entertained and educated about other countries. Savoir-faire is as important to travelers as tips and information.

The new Herald travel editor, readers were told, has written eight cookbooks and traveled to the Arctic Ocean, the Great Barrier Reef, and a cooking school in Tuscany. It was like announcing that your new fashion editor has written five mysteries and wears nice clothes.