JAKARTA, Indonesia (June 18, 2018) — The history of working media seeking to leverage publishing capabilities to secure personal fringe benefits is long and sordid indeed. Traditionally, as befits transactions undertaken by relative paupers, such perks rarely rise above the level of heavy hors d’oeuvres. When they rise to the level of media junkets — the “FAM” or familiarization trips writers accept in exchange for coverage — the stakes and potential shithousery increase by orders of magnitude.
Again, this tawdry exercise in professional barter typically starts out innocently enough. I worked at a daily newspaper back in the late 1980s. The nightly assignment schedule invariably included this Chamber of Commerce reception or that City Hall event — places often devoid of news value, but where free food could be had. Open bar? Well, the entire editorial staff might show up for something like that.
Reporters and editors don’t traditionally make a lot of money; they’re frequently quite young. This is to say, freeloading of this ilk shouldn’t be viewed as particularly untoward or shameful. It’s something of a necessity frankly. One of our many mascots in that same newsroom was a giant cartoon headshot of a Dick Tracy-like character, complete with ‘40s era fedora. Tucked in his hatband was an index card that might have read “PRESS”; instead it read, “I’m with the PRESS. Where’s the FOOD?”
Several links up the food chain in this realm sits the media FAM. There’s no way to spin such junkets according to journalistic standards or ethics. These are flat-out boondoggles whereby some publicity-seeking entity lures reporters and freelancers on some trip — with the understanding that once they’ve been wined/dined and returned home, said media will publish nice stories about the resort property, the golf course or cuisine to be had there, or maybe the broader “destination” itself. In the golf and travel realm, where I’ve toiled for more than three decades now, FAM trips are the ultimate perk because, well, let’s not be coy: In addition to free food & drink, participating media also get complementary air fare, lodging and assorted swag.
Media Junkets & The Barter Economy
The quid pro quo nature of the FAM exercise is little discussed but well understood by all parties. One doesn’t visit a golf course or hotel, on a junket, only to savage the place in print. That would be untoward. As our moms all told us, if you don’t have anything nice to say, say nothing at all — or concentrate on something else that doesn’t suck.
Here’s another FAM trip bylaw: Answer the bell. No matter how much free boozing and carousing was had the night before, media guests have an obligation to show up, on time, first thing the next morning (according to the itinerary) without fail.
There’s one more, less formal understanding re. media trips: Something is sure to go terribly wrong. I’ve been on dozens of these excursions as a working journalist. I’ve organized dozens more, as a PR professional, working on behalf of various clients. When one is devising a week-long itinerary in a foreign country — for one’s own travels — something is sure to be overlooked or go sideways. When organizing for a dozen people, most of whom will be drunk 35 percent of the week? The odds only increase. The mere presence of a dozen journalistic chancers eating, drinking and indulging on someone else’s dime makes the possibility of mishap a mortal lock.
Someone, someday, will write a comprehensive and hilarious book about all the great FAM trips gone awry: who got thrown in jail, what foreign dignitary got naked, why shellfish is always a risky choice… In the meantime, journalists will merely trade these yarns back and forth like war stories. In that tradition I offer up below the itinerary from a single morning gone completely haywire, in Jakarta, during Ramadan, back in 2012. This was a trip I helped to organize and host. I promised the client I wouldn’t breathe a word until a reasonable discretionary period had passed. Still, I have changed the names to protect, not the innocent necessarily, but rather those professional reputations still in play.
This Junket did its Job
In most respects, this particular FAM proved a roaring success. It produced dozens of glowing, published pieces re. the awesome golf product on offer in and around Indonesia’s sprawling capital. To produce this content I had wrangled a genial and cosmopolitan group of 12 media and tour operators hailing from the UK, China, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Australia and the United States. From the Fond Memory Dept., I could just as easily cite the epic karaoke session we all enjoyed, the compelling version of “Take It To The Limit” I performed with the band at our closing soirée, the five superb rounds of golf we played, or the incredible dinner we organized for 20 at the Four Seasons.
But none of those vignettes would include the burning of tires or police in combat gear.
See below a timeline of events the morning after said banquet. I can vouch for its accuracy because, like James Comey, I was moved to take contemporaneous notes, on my phone — such was the utterly random and alarming nature of the proceedings.