Travel Writing as Lies

Try doing this with the major dailies: open the travel pages and more often than not, they are all about the same place. Sometimes one newspaper would outscoop another and the story of say, Disneyland in Hongkong, would come one week earlier. But inevitably they cover the same places. One of the newspapers (usually Bulletin and Star) would bring out a group photo of the travel writers and the people that brought them there. DO NOT BOTHER TO READ THE STORIES. They are all lies. They are justifications of all the Mai Tais the writers sipped in their sponsored stays. Rarely do newspapers publish stories of real travelers. Instead, read Chuck Thompson's Smile When You're Lying.