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.
The New York Times' television ad ends with a young couple sitting on a couch reading the Sunday paper. The guy finishes and says: "I'll trade you the magazine for the book review." And the woman, agreeing to the deal, immediately stops reading - possibly in mid-sentence - and happily swaps sections with her mate.
What does that say to you? To readers, it says: That must be a pretty boring book review if she's willing to hand it over while still in the middle of it. But young advertising writers obviously aren't readers.
Sam Zell has admitted he made a mistake in buying the Tribune Company.
It takes a big man to admit he was wrong. It takes an even bigger man to apologize for his blunder, especially one that affected the lives and careers of thousands of employees. But in Zell's recent interview with Bloomberg Television, there is no mention of the havoc he caused by his hubris, no note of concern for the laid off journalists stretching from Los Angeles to Fort Lauderdale. When he came to speak to the Sun-Sentinel at the beginning of 2008 he told us that whatever happened to the company would have little effect on him, since he was, as he put it, "filthy rich." No, he said, we were the ones who stood to win or lose. The term "filthy rich" seems increasingly apt.
The speaking season is coming to a close. Yesterday morning I addressed the Friends of the Plantation Library. It was a bigger group than I had at the University of Miami, and older, but also overwhelmingly female.
I talked about my favorite places: Vietnam, Thailand, Turkey, Poland, Italy, Brazil, Mexico, India (actually, I forgot these last two, so here they are), and - here at home - the South, the Midwest, the West, Florida (pretty much any place outside of New England, with the exception of the Maine coast).
When I was finished, Vivian, who was conducting the meeting, said in her sweet voice that she wrote her first letter to the editor when she heard that I'd been laid off. "My daughter wouldn't let me send it," she added. When I expressed disappointment, she said, "Oh, I can write a real zinger."
I didn't have the heart to tell her it wouldn't have made an impression. The people running the paper were so engaged in a futile attempt to attract young readers that they completely turned their backs on their loyal, long-time subscribers.
What’s happening today to the newspaper industry is similar to what happened a few decades ago to the tobacco industry. People are realizing that reading a newspaper is a filthy, disgusting habit - especially to those who don’t partake. (Ever get seated at a restaurant next to someone reading a newspaper?)
But reading a newspaper, like smoking a cigarette, makes those who do it feel very good. So while it may go out of fashion as a popular habit, it will surely remain as a forbidden pleasure. Just as cigar bars opened to satisfy the needs of demonized smokers, newspaper bars will open soon for the increasingly ostracized print crowd. They will provide a place for people to sit and read the news, the sports, the comics, and the obits in peace. It will become hip, like lighting up a stogie, to pop in for a satisfying hour with the paper. Newspapers from around the country will be available, until they go out of business, after which customers will dip into the classics: The Miami News, The Philadelphia Bulletin, the New York Herald Tribune. Newspaper bars will be found in every city, and people will walk out of them refreshed, with darkened fingertips and well-cluttered minds.