Rolf Potts features a quote from Robert Kaplan on the advantages of travel-writing over journalism from an interview by the Columbia Journalism Review:

The travel writer knows that people are least themselves when being tape-recorded. You’ll never truly understand anybody by asking a direct question, especially someone you don’t know very well. Rather than interrogate strangers, which is essentially what reporters do, the travel writer gets to know people, and reveals them as they reveal themselves. After being with a battalion of marines for several weeks in Iraq, I noticed that they suddenly stopped using profane language when some journalists arrived and turned on their tape recorders. Whatever the marines were in front of the journalists, they were less real than they had been before.

The interview isn’t online but Rolf promises to quote more from the article in the coming weeks. Read the rest.

Wot wot! goes out to reader James Card for the tip!

• BROWSE / IN TIMELINE
• « Fratricide
• » Drink up! Inshallah!