Behind the story: Hawai'i's regenerative travel
The ABCs of researching and writing this investigative story
I’m excited to share with you the first in a multi-part series about Hawai’i’s transition to regenerative travel in Hothouse Solutions 2.0.
For some context, Hothouse Solutions was created by Cadence Bambenek and Michael Coren. What I love about this newsletter (and what I often tell my students) is that this is a prime example of true solutions journalism. The basics of solutions journalism is that the piece focuses on a tangible solution to a pressing issue and analyzes the effectiveness of the solution in practice.
When they asked me to share some of the intensive research I have been doing about Hawai’i’s transition to regenerative travel, I was stoked.
Documenting Hawai’i’s journey away from a traditional tourism model has been a multi-year personal journey that began when the Aloha State was experimenting with telling journalists about destinations we shouldn’t write about for visitors. You’ll read some of the information I learned in my over a hundred pages of interview notes, conversations with community and tourism leaders, environmentalists, activists, Native Hawaiians, and anti-tourism activists.
Hothouse and I have been working on this series for over two years. While the editing process can sometimes be intense (and maddening), I’m proud of how this series is shaping up.
For young journalists reading, I want to take a moment to share that writing isn’t that isolated experience we’ve been conditioned to think it is. The inception of an idea and the first draft (or drafts) are often us sitting at our computers hashing out ideas. But once we start working with editors and copy editors, the work ceases to be simply ours. Your name might be under the headline, but a team of collaborators helps shape the piece.
Often as writers we need to get out of our own way, leave our egos behind and trust the process. Full disclosure that when it came to this series, I turned in an initial draft that was completed reworked so that it wasn’t my voice, or really, my material, anymore. Two years later the editors and I had to go back to that initial draft to find the material we needed to report in an accurate and authentic way.
I kept reminding myself that this is a process and a business. In the end of the day, the editors are paying me to do a service for them as a journalist. Always, I aim to deliver copy that serves the tone and style of the publication.
I’m happy to report that this series is better because of that collaboration.
As always, I look forward to your feedback. And while you’re at it, sign up to follow Hothouse Solutions.
Thanks for sticking around on this journey with me.
Other links to recent work:
LA Times op-ed: Don’t Cancel College Students