Literary “Journalists” and the Iceland Air Junket
Written byPosted on December 4, 2007
Filed Under Journalistic Ethics
I would never accept a publisher’s offer to fly to Iceland on their dime to ostensibly “report” upon the author Yrsa Sigurdardottir. Indeed, if I were on staff at a newspaper, crossing this line would lead either to disciplinary action or to being fired.
And yet this was precisely the seedy offer on the table a few months ago. A William Morrow publicist sent around an email, citing Ron Hogan and Shelf Awareness’s John Mutter as a few of the “journalists” on board this celebrity junket. I obtained a copy of the email from several sources. Here’s the boilerplate that was sent around to newspaper reporters, freelance writers, and bloggers:
William Morrow is working with Iceland Air to do an overseas trip with Icelandic author Yrsa Sigurdardottir, who wrote the chilly, atmospheric mystery “Last Rituals,” set in her native country. 3-4 days, looks amazing.
We’ll start with a book signing/giveaway at the check-in gate at Iceland Air at BWI and then the media and the passengers on the “Literary Express” will board the plane and visit locations in Iceland that are featured in the book.
The dates are 28Nov – 02Dec and the package will be offered up to the general public as well.
We’re looking for placements in the following markets: Washington D.C., Baltimore, Boston and New York (in that order). We already have Ron Hogan and John Mutter as well as contacts from Library Journal and PW going, so we’re looking for some more mainstream media. Do you think this is something you could be assigned to write about in a daily newspaper or media outlet in one of the aforementioned markets?
Perhaps the publicist was looking for “more mainstream media” because most journalists have the integrity and the decency to recognize a thorny and clearly unethical scenario. But not Ron Hogan. Really, the only question concerning Ron Hogan isn’t whether or not he can be bought, but just what sum he can be purchased for. (In the case of Hogan, it was at least $1,223 — according to a recent Kayak search for the cheapest Iceland Air round trip flight to Reykjavik — and who knows how much for the “Literary Express” and hotel accommodations.)
Hogan, the “journalist” behind GalleyCat who seems to think that a lolcat photo is today’s idea of a Wildean riposte, has shifted his comparatively innocuous relationship with publishers of guzzling gratis drinks at parties to accepting free flights to Iceland. He appears to have no problem violating the basic trust between journalist and reader and, as he so enthusiastically reported in the past several days, he was indeed in Iceland. Like the other journalists, he was flown out on the dime of Iceland Air.
Did we get anything from Hogan that questioned or probed? No. This was the kind of unsavory “reporting” one sees from Harry Knowles or the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
There were posts like this, in which we learn about William Morrow’s great philanthropy in disseminating free copies of Last Rituals to all passengers on the daily flight to Reykjavik. Hogan boasts about driving a Prius at Hertz and swimming at an expensive spa. Even if one considers this territory to be fair game, why wasn’t Hogan transparent about these costs in his reports?
To be fair, Hogan isn’t the only guilty one. As PW’s Karen Holt — not exactly an ethical rose garden herself — so happily reported, “the idea morphed into a four-day trip for six journalists, arranged and paid for by Iceland Air, in which the writers spent time time [sic] with Sigurdardottir visiting locations relevant to her book.” Passengers on the flight received “free books, cake and champagne.”
I sent several emails to William Morrow publicist Danielle Bartlett. She informed me that William Morrow did not pay for the trip and that I should contact Iceland Air, but she wouldn’t answer questions about whether she considered this gesture to cross the line of publicist-journalist relationships. Emails to Iceland Air were not returned. I have also emailed Iceland Air spokesperson Debbie Scott and asked a few questions. If I hear anything back, I will report my findings.
But one thing is clear. Whether you’re someone who writes for print or online, if you accept someone’s money and then proceed to write about something without questioning or examining it, preferring to report on how you were wined and dined, you have no business calling yourself a journalist. And yet “journalist” seems to be a noun that Karen Holt is quite attached to.
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Beyond Heaving Bosoms by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan. The famed writers behind Smart Bitches, Trashy Books have written a very funny and thoughtful volume about romances, both Old Skool and New Skool. Here is a book that any smug and humorless literary manboy beating his flabby passive chest over Banville or Bolano should probably read pronto, if only for the distant possibility that he might get over himself. While the Choose Your Own Adventure segment at the end caused me to have a very disturbing dream involving Shelley Long (don't ask), Sarah and Candy did have me rethinking many of my own misperceptions when I wasn't busy laughing. They're not afraid to take on the New York Times Bok Review or even the groupthink within certain sectors of the romance community.
Alice Fantastic by Maggie Estep. This wild and highly enjoyable narrative involves two sisters (presumably, the third one was still being rented out by Chekhov), a hippie ex-junkie mother who lives with seventeen dogs, a murder, gambling, and libidinous Hollywood actresses who live in Woodstock. But this is the wonderful Maggie Estep we're talking here. And what seems at first like a quirky yarn becomes something unexpectedly moving about connectivity. What I love about Estep's work is the way that she'll juxtapose an extremely astute observation (now that you mention it, why do cab drivers always have somebody to talk with on the phone past midnight?) with an often outrageous story development.
Generosity by Richard Powers. It doesn't come out until September 29th, but Richard Powers's latest will have anyone committed to books reconsidering their literary fervor. I foresee some animosity from the vanilla critics hostile to idea-driven novels, but book bloggers, YouTube chroniclers, and MFAs would do well to plunge into this chance-taking narrative, which introduces vital questions about what the reader's relationship is with media, scientific dissection, and "creative nonfiction." Are we rats fleeing to happy cities? Or can we find the humanism within the purported plague?
Pieces for the Left Hand by J. Robert Lennon. Lennon is one of the most underrated fiction writers working today. Much as On the Night Plain proved that Lennon had a lot more in the toolbox than heartfelt (and often very funny) suburban satire, this slim but fascinating volume juxtaposes 100 small-town anecdotes -- arranged by category -- in a manner that reads, at times, like Nicholson Baker's passions for minutiae and, at other times, Stewart O'Nan's concern for psychological detail. The result is fiction that makes us wonder about whether one person's subjective view of particulars can entirely be trusted. This book never found a publisher in 2005. But thankfully, Graywolf has released it in the United States, along with Lennon's latest novel, The Castle.
Wonderful World by Javier Calvo. This wonderfully raucous volume has been completely ignored by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. But it's probably one of the most delightful reading experiences I've had this year. Calvo cavalierly mashes up multiple genres and manages to mix up familial subtext with larger-than-life, almost cartoonish characters. (Indeed, one might argue that one mobster's penis is a character of its own in this sprawling novel.). This is not an easy thing to pull off, but Calvo makes it work. And it's helped immeasurably by Mara Faye Lethem's idiom-specific translation. (See longer post.)
The Means of Reproduction, Michelle Goldberg This thoughtful book tackles the complicated (and little discussed) subject of reproductive rights from numerous angles, which includes a number of unpleasant but necessary ones. The upshot is that there isn't a quick fix solution for declining birth rates and fundamentalist abuses. Just about every political faction has contributed to the friction. But you'll want to read this book anyway to refamiliarize yourself with the topic, but also to understand just what's occurred during the past several decades to get us where we are today. (See also podcast interview with Goldberg.)
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“Indeed, if I were on staff at a newspaper, crossing this line would lead either to disciplinary action or to being fired.”
I know of one case where that would not be true. Years ago, when Disney opened it’s Animal Kingdom park in Florida, an editor at the newspaper I worked at was flown down with her daughter. I remember that the junket was publicized in the story, so at least the reader knew what they were in for.
[...] it’s good to see that ex-Publishers Weekly junket whore Karen Holt has landed on her feet at an outlet suitably tailored to her ethics and [...]
[...] the thoughtful content. (What next? Newspaper-style pop ups and registration?) Some bloggers have even taken money from publishers and flown, Harry Knowles-style, around the globe. Meanwhile, other voices are ignored because of [...]