Is Journalism Dead?

About three years ago when I was on travel assignment in east Tennessee for Women’s Health magazine, I remember having dinner with the photographer assigned to my story and the two of us poking fun at our twenty-something assistants who were exchanging My Space addresses.  We earnestly and, as it turns out, foolishly believed social media was for people under 25.  Two years later, my twenty-something assistant is helping me get hooked up on Facebook and Twitter.  Not because I relish joining this new world of over-the-top online narcissism but because being linked in and socially networked has become essential for professional survival in the Information Age.

Plenty of people in my industry haven’t yet figured out how to jump on the mercenary digital bandwagon.  And I’m not just talking social media.  I’m talking the brave new world of online information in general.  If you’re not prepared to flesh out Hollywood’s latest fashion disasters on Yahoo! or provide a 400-word bullet point distillation on health care reform for MSN, you might find yourself out of work these days if you’re a journalist.

Why?  Because in case you haven’t noticed, long-form journalism and investigative reporting are dying a rather quick and ugly death in a culture addicted to tabloid-like news that can be scanned in 30 seconds or less.

In a recent op-ed piece in The New York Times, writer Sheelah Kolhatkar lamented, “While most people are worried about getting paid for their work, I’m more concerned that journalists might be the digital-age equivalent of monks illuminating manuscripts, a group whose skills will soon disappear.”

Kolhatkar is definitely on to something.  When I started out in this business more than a decade ago, I remember being tutored by editors to work hard to develop my narratives–fill them with local color, vivid descriptions, exclusive and meaningful commentary from sources based on intensive follow-up questioning.  Now the order of the day is catchy sound bites.  And a few quick bullet points because nobody wants to actually have to read an article.

Plenty of journalists like Kolhatkar are worried about their paychecks, yes, but they’re also worried about just what kind of information is getting passed around in this “Information Age.”  There will always be work for those of us who provide content (whether that content is good, bad, or just plain stupid), but how much of the content we produce is actually worth reading anymore?  Are you really gaining any insight into the world when you fire up your Internet browser in the evening and search the latest “headlines?”

In a recent review of The Death and Life of American Journalism, Chris Hedges contends Americans are being bombarded today with gossip and trivia.  “But news,” he says, “which costs money and takes talent to produce, is dying not only because citizens are migrating to the Internet and corporations are no longer using newsprint to advertise, but because in an age of profound culture decline the masses prefer to be entertained rather than informed. We no longer value the culture or journalism, as we no longer value classical theater or great books, and this devaluation means the general public is not inclined to pay for it.”

Dear reader, are you guilty?  Do you grumble over having to pay for an online newspaper subscription?  If so, you may be part of the problem here.  Because high quality information like high quality anything costs money.  If you want advertising to pay your ticket to information access, then expect the editorial you read to be closely linked to the advertisers who pay for it.

Is journalism dead?  Well, that depends on what and where you’re reading…and who’s paying for it.

The Smokies You Should See

Fontana Lake, courtesy French C. Grimes

With warm weather travel season just around the corner, tourists will soon be heading to the Smokies in droves again.  If you love the Great Smoky Mountains National Park as I do but want to avoid the crowds, skip the Newfound Gap Road and yes, even Cades Cove, and check out some of the less traveled back roads of the park.   One of my recommended road trips is featured in Blue Ridge Country this month.  Check out my new article “The Smokies You Haven’t Seen” for a tour of the park’s southwestern border.

Deals Gap Motorcycle Resort

In addition to enjoying scenic glimpses of Fontana Lake, formed by the highest concrete dam east of the Rockies, a quiet stroll for your car along the trickling waters of Parsons Branch, and some of the loveliest views of the Smokies from the Foothills Parkway, you’ll also have the chance to drive the “Tail of the Dragon,” one of the curviest sections of road east of the Mississippi ever to make two or four tires squeal.  I recommend you check it out with two wheels, however…if you’ve got the bike.  You’ll definitely get funny looks pulling into the Deals Gap Motorcycle Resort in a Mercedes….

Happy driving!

My Top Picks For the Maple Festival

Old-time buckets on a maple near Bolar, Virginia

The 52nd annual Highland Maple Festival kicks off its second weekend of festivities Saturday, and if you haven’t been over the mountains to watch the sap run yet or to sample the locally produced sweet amber syrup, hitch on your muck boots, and come on over before it’s all done.  Here are my top picks for how to spend your time….

Best syrup and pancake breakfast: Bolar Ruritan Club on Route 220 South at the Highland-Bath County line (these guys make their batter from scratch, and you can taste the difference)

Best Sugar Camp: Puffenbarger’s Sugar Orchard south of Blue Grass on Route 637; Ivan Puffenbarger uses a vacuum pump to increase the flow of the sap to the sugarhouse where a reverse osmosis system turns sugar water to syrup

Best place to grab dinner: Puff’s Pit-Cooked BBQ/Southernmost Maple Products’ Friday and Saturday night buffet dinner on Big Valley Road (absolutely the best pork loin you’ll ever eat off someone else’s table)

Read more about the festival and its many personalities in the February issue of Virginia Living in my article “Sugar Sweet, Mountain High.”

The Enchanted Woods

Faerie Cottage in the Enchanted Woods

While Winterthur just north of Wilmington, Delaware, may be best known as the former country estate of Henry Francis DuPont and its astounding collection of more than 85,000 American (or at least used in America) antiques from the 17th through 19th centuries, the extensive gardens of the estate hold a nice surprise for little ones.  The Enchanted Woods, located just beyond the March Bank, which is itself in full bloom right now, houses a fairytale cottage and furniture just the right size for little imaginations.  If you have the kids in tow (and even if you don’t), be sure to stop here and play awhile.

Faerie Cottage fireplace

Read more about a spring getaway to Delaware and southeastern Pennsylvania’s Brandywine Valley in my latest travel article “Brandywine in Bloom” in the March issue of Baltimore Magazine.

Stay tuned for the scoop on the one Brandywine Museum you shouldn’t visit…at least if you’re an unexpected journalist like me!

A hut for trolls?

Pre-order My New Book

Moon Blue Ridge & Smoky Mountains

Well, this weekend I finished editing page proofs for Moon Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains, which is scheduled to hit bookstores in May.  Take a sneak peek and pre-order the book now, just in time for the Blue Ridge Parkway’s 75th Anniversary.  Check out the pre-order options at Avalon Travel.

Photographic Relief for Cabin Fever

If you’ve been under blizzard duress these past few weeks and wondering if spring will ever come, you can at least daydream about it.  Start planning a spring getaway to the Brandywine River Valley west of Philadelphia.  Trust me, in only a couple of months you can be enjoying blossoms like these at Longwood Gardens.  Check out my latest travel feature “Brandywine in Bloom” in the March issue of Baltimore Magazine, which just hit newsstands.

Alaska Without Relent

Humpback Whale and calf in Icy Strait

The thing about Alaska is you must keep your eyes open.  If you don’t, you’ll likely miss something–that sudden flash of spray as a humpback whale rises out of the sea, the darting head of a sea otter investigating you from afar.  The Safari Explorer that Sarah and I boarded last September for a week-long tour of the Inside Passage with 20 other passengers and a crew of about just as many promises one thing at least–Alaska without relent.

Scanning Icy Strait for whales

Our first morning, breakfast was left cooling on the table as Captain Scott Carden announced humpback whales in full sight just off the northern coast of Admiralty Island.  And the thing you have to remember about Alaska is there won’t just be one whale…or even half a dozen.  There may be 20 or even 30.  They will be ubiquitous, outnumbering any human presence within 60 miles perhaps.  The thought that once the whole earth was like this–dominated by wild creatures–gives one a little thrill.  As does the sound.  As a female rises to the surface in company with her calf, her blowhole percolates upward releasing a sound like the calculated whoosh of a hot air balloon passing overhead.  Then another one rises several yards away, releasing the carol of a foghorn that echoes off the mountainsides, carrying away on the brisk air for miles.  It seems the humpbacks surround us for hours, as we wind around into Icy Strait and the distant Fairweather Mountain range comes into view.

Fairweather Range from Icy Strait

In the afternoon, we head out in kayaks to explore the little inlets around George Island.  The silence is overpowering.  There is nothing here at all, and as Sarah and I paddle around the edge of the island out of sight of the yacht, we leave all sight of humanity behind.  The lap-lap of the water against the kayak, the stiff trunks of wind-battered evergreens, the swish of sea kelp in the water is all there is to life here.  And then suddenly, the surface of the water breaks a few yards ahead of us, and the slick head of a sea otter appears, whiskers dripping beads of the tranquil bay.  We approach.  He darts under the surface, rises again a little further on, teasing us to follow, curious and elusive all at once.   We stop paddling and listen to the perfect silence, taking in the vastness of a world where we are entirely and beautifully irrelevant.

Kayaking around George Island

Kayaking near Cross Sound

Winter on “The Hill”

There are certain disadvantages to being stranded on the farm in winter, but the views are not one of them….  Here’s to winter in the Blue Grass Valley.

I Need Help From My Readers

Do you know anyone who owns AGCO or Massey Ferguson equipment who has an interesting story to tell?  It doesn’t need to be tractor or hay baler related!  A farmer who does rodeo on the side or a farmer who has built an ice rink in his cornfield….something along those lines.  He or she must be willing to do an interview for a magazine.  Thank you!

The Other Side of the Smokies

Palmer Chapel

Next time you’re visiting the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and eager for a peek at the mountains’ human history, skip the traffic jams in popular Cades Cove, and head to the North Carolina side of the park.  The serene and lovely Cataloochee Valley, accessible via a winding gravel road just off I-40 west of Asheville and north of Maggie Valley, provides a haunting look at the park’s human past in what was once the Smokies’ largest settled community.

Front porch of the Caldwell House

The only thing roaming the woods, meadows, and trout steams of Cataloochee these days are elk…and a few wayward visitors looking to avoid the crowds of east Tennessee….

A long abandoned Bible in Palmer Chapel

For more detailed information on the history of the Cataloochee Valley, pre-order my new book Moon Smoky Mountains and Blue Ridge online.

The front door at Woody Place