Robert D. Kaplan

"Neither journalism nor travel writing are real subjects. Rather, they are only a means for communicating subjects that are real," writes Robert D. Kaplan in Cultivating Loneliness, an article for the Columbia Journalism Review.

This article is a great read for anyone interested in any field of journalism, let alone travel journalism. It is chock-full of reasons why the industry is changing so much due to technology infiltrating the once-lonely environment of travel journalism. Kaplan, the author of eleven books on various subjects, writes that the barrage of information has created the illusion of knowledge:

The Internet now makes facts so effortless to obtain that there is the illusion of knowledge where none actually exists. With so many low-budget Web logs that do little more than emotionally react to the headlines, rare is the commentator who does the field work necessary to earn his opinions — or even his prejudices. And as punditry has crowded out the space once owned by print correspondents, the public is increasingly removed from the intangible essences and minutiae of distant places that explain the present, and thus forewarn of the future.

I won't quote the entire article here (though I wish I could), Kaplan goes on the make some other great points, one of which deals with the difference between "reporting" and "journalism." To Kaplan, good reporting is listening, not asking interrogative questions, as he relates two examples (one from a conversation with a Turk, another, his experiences with Marines in Afghanistan) to prove this.

Currently, I am reading a book by Kaplan called Balkan Ghosts. It is both history and travel journalism, written throughout the late 1980s and published in 1993 about the so-called conflict in the Balkan states. The Balkans (Romania, the former geographic area known as Yugoslavia, Croatia, Albania and Slovenia) not to be confused with theBalticss, have had such an enormous impact on Western politics since the turn of the last century it is hard to fit it all in one book.

The article and the book both epitomize excellent "travel writing," something which I'm not sure I'd ever be very successful. But as we've said in class, in order to be a good writer, one must read good books. Here's to a start.


Resources: Kaplan, Robert D. Balkan Ghosts.
Cultivating Loneliness: Robert D. Kaplan for Columbia Journalism Review, America's Premier Media Monitor