Dictionary definition of “hotel journalism”

hotel journalism

n. cursory, non-expert, or second-hand reporting from a sheltered location or perspective (in an otherwise unsafe place). Also hotel reporting. Subjects: English, Media

Editorial Note: The first citation is probably unrelated to the current usage.

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Citations: [1916 George Ade New York Times Magazine (Jan. 2) “George Ade Is Reminiscent About Celebrities” p. 14: They set him to do hotel reporting. He was a failure as a hotel reporter because the young man employed by The Herald and the young man employed by The Times secured interviews every day with interesting visitors whom he was never able to find. He could not find them because these interesting personages did not exist.…The visitor who told the wondrous tales invariably left on the afternoon train for New York, but his name was on the hotel register as a corroborative detail intended to give verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.] 1987 T.E. Bell Houston Chronicle (Texas) (June 14) “What’s really happening in Nicaragua: A film maker’s view” p. 20: The jacket tout compares “Where is Nicaragua?” to Joan Didion’s ” Salvador,” a condescending and superficial bit of hotel journalism published a few years ago. That is unfortunate. Didion’s slim volume was full of holes you could drive a tank through, and was shot through with faulty political and cultural judgments about El Salvador and Central America based on a three-week visit in 1981. 1989 Howard Rosenberg Los Angeles Times (Dec. 21) “A View From the Hotel: Reporting the Panama Conflict” p. 1: ABC’s Peter Jennings called it “hotel reporting.” We got it from China last June when many Western journalists, their freedom of movement severely restricted in Beijing, were forced to observe the crackdown of pro-reform dissidents from their hotel rooms overlooking Tian An Men Square. 2005 ChannelNewsAsia.com (Jan. 12) “European press pulls in horns in face of Iraqi terror” (in Paris, France): Leonard Doyle, foreign editor of The Independent in London, said, “we make a big effort not to do what you might call “hotel journalism,” and we make a very big effort not to sub-contract work to local Iraqi journalists—we think that’s basically unfair. It’s a risk to them. We carry the same risk.” 2005 Robert Fisk Independent (U.K.) (Jan. 17) “Hotel Journalism Gives American Troops A Free Hand As The Press Shelters Indoors” p. 22: “Hotel journalism” is the only phrase for it. More and more Western reporters in Baghdad are reporting from their hotels rather than the streets of Iraq’s towns and cities.

Posted 31 Jan 05 | Permalink | Tell a Friend