Refereeing the Travel Media: Arthur Frommer Escalating His Attacks on the New York Times
5/13/2008 at 11:16 AM
Tags: Travel Media, New York Times, Stuart Emmrich, Arthur Frommer (all tags)
On his blog, the Andy Rooney of travel, Arthur Frommer, frequently gripes about the pricey experiences sometimes covered in The New York Times' Sunday travel section. (Recently he was half-mystified, half-offended that the Times would report on The Plaza hotel, where rooms go for $875 a night.) But in his most recent rant--about this mention of a one-day, £345 Orient-Express train trip, Frommer has gone from crotchety complainer to conspiracy theorist:
The New York Times travel section has now plumbed such depths of absurdity that I, for one, have concluded that this senselessness can't be accidental. The decision to sprinkle the pages of a travel section with references to sky-high travel offerings can only have come about from a directive from on high to do so.
It must be part of an effort to attract advertising from the producers of luxury goods ... In writing as they do, I am now convinced that the travel writers and junior travel editors of the New York Times are attempting to execute a policy consciously set down by the Times.
Sounds bad! And it would be--if Frommer's suspicions had any basis in reality.
We decided to write the Times to get that side of the story. After all, it's hardly fair to accuse an entire group of journalists of violating professional ethics without a shred of evidence supporting your claims. Here's what Travel Editor Stuart Emmrich had to say:
Mr. Frommer's charge that the Travel section's occasional coverage of luxury properties has come from "a directive from on high" so that we can attract more advertising from the makers of luxury goods is not only absurd, but shows a complete lack of understanding of how The New York Times operates. The latter is particularly surprising since Frommer's is our content partner on [our] website and thus should be aware of the strict barriers between the editorial and business departments of this newspaper.
Our coverage of luxury travel leaves us plenty of room to cast a skeptical eye over some of these high-end properties in much the same way that Frommer's lucrative contract with the Times doesn't preclude him from attacking us when the whim hits.
Snap! Truth be told, we didn't even need to ask Stuart about this, since he already addressed the issue in this "Talk with the Newsroom" in early April:
There are, however, reasons why you see extensive coverage of luxury resorts, or upscale hotels or trendy restaurants profiled in this section. Unlike the travel magazines, mainly published on a monthly basis, we are a newspaper section and thus must cover the news on a timely basis.
And the news in the world of travel often includes where new hotels are being built, where new resorts are being developed and where airlines are adding new routes. And many of these are, in fact, pitched to higher-income travelers. We cannot ignore that.
But we can balance that coverage with more affordable alternatives, and that we do as well, even if some of our readers don’t feel we do enough of it.
Related Stories:
· Would You Pay $725 for Round-Trip Rail to Leeds? [Frommer's]
· Travel Media coverage [Jaunted]
[Original Photo: Wikipedia]
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