Junket-roversy
Sigh. Mike Albo is a good writer and this is ridiculous.You know who we shouldn’t be persecuting? Freelancers. We’re poor. Screw off.
A few things:
One: press trips, generally speaking, are bad news. Especially in this climate, where writers can take a trip, place a story and then have that magazine fold on them. And, at this point, very few remaining publications allow them.
Two: plenty of Times writers take press trips. Just ask a publicist! Sometimes the Times will even publish something generated from that trip, unbeknownst to them. It works thusly: You are sent on a trip to Jamaica, maybe write something for Imaginary Bride magazine, which allows press trips. Then three months later when the Times puts a call out for pitches about Jamaica. You’ve been recently and know some good properties! You didn’t go on a press trip for the Times (or whatever non-press trip pub you’re writing for) so you can get around it. Yes, the Times has writers sign that oath, but in this day and age, they’ll look the other way unless it’s that kind of situation like a press trip turning directly into a story, or this Albo silliness.
On the Times side, their policy is absurd. If they paid commensurate to what they’re asking writers to do—essentially not write for anyone else—it would be one thing. But they don’t, and so they get situations like this one.
That said, this JetBlue thing is not really a press trip. It’s a free trip for people to then twitter about JetBlue or say they flew JetBlue with Gideon Yago. I doubt all of the people on this trip had placements. Also, neither JetBlue or Sandals really need the exposure, though I am sure Sandals is happy to be visited by writers who would not have been allowed there six years ago.
This is all my way of saying, leave Mike Albo alone, let him take his free trip. If you don’t want writers that take freebies, then you get Alex Kucynzski in the Critical Shopper column instead—someone who is so rich that the world is her freebie. What’s worse?
