Travel Maven Blog ...... David Molyneaux posts from TheTravelMavens.com

Caribbean Tourism Organization picks Molyneaux as travel awards finalist

David G. Molyneaux — writer of this column and blog — was a finalist in the Caribbean Tourism Organization’s Caribbean Travel Media Awards in June during Caribbean Week New York.  

 

I was nominated for my cruise column on Barbados that was published in the Miami Herald and in my Travel Maven Blog. It was titled: Cruising from Barbados, port of beaches, cricket matches, rum, and a synagogue reflecting Jewish history from 1654.

 

This is quite an honor. Thanks to the Caribbean Tourism Organization. And to the people of Barbados, who always make a good story.

Nidhe Israel Synagogue in Bridgetown, rebuilt in 1833 to replace the synagogue of 1654, which was destroyed in a hurricane (Photo by David G. Molyneaux)

David Molyneaux, editor TheTravelMavens.com,  writes regularly about cruising news, tips and trends at TravelMavenBlog.com. His cruise trends column is published monthly in U.S. newspapers, including the Miami Herald, and on Internet sites, including TheTravelMavens.com and AllThingsCruise.

Carnival Corporation makes major donation to support excellence in travel journalism, SATW Foundation's Lowell Thomas competition

Video, judges comments on winning entries online at SATWF.com

Lovers of travel stories and images will find quality journalism in writing, pictures, broadcasts and Internet posts among the winners in the annual Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition.

Best entries in 24 categories for the year ending March 31, 2017, were announced recently by the non-profit Society of American Travel Writers (SATW) Foundation (www.satwf.com).

On the website (look left), you will find links to videos and lists of Lowell Thomas winners who produce excellent reports, reviews, and stories about their adventures and exciting discoveries all over the world.

For 34 years, the Lowell Thomas competition has focused on the best of travel journalism, paying faculty at top college journalism schools to judge the contest and rewarding winners with cash prizes that total about $20,000 each year.

As president of the SATW Foundation, I am pleased to report that the Foundation and its Lowell Thomas contest are stronger than ever, thanks to major contributions from Carnival Corporation, the world's largest leisure travel company with 10 cruise brands, including Carnival Cruise Line, Cunard, Holland America Line, Princess Cruises and Seabourn.

Bringing people together from around the world

The Foundation is grateful for Carnival Corporation’s financial support, which will total $240,000 over the six years, 2015-2020, and also for its recognition of the value of excellent journalists whose work has a huge impact on the millions of people who aspire to travel. Many Americans rate travel at the top of their dream list, saving as much as possible of their precious disposable income and disposable time to travel.

 “Travel helps bring people together from around the world, and the media play an essential role in helping to inspire travelers to experience new and interesting people, cultures and places,” said Roger Frizzell, chief communications officer for Carnival Corporation.

Molyneaux inducted into Press Club of Cleveland's Journalism Hall of Fame

Thanks for these fine words from Plain Dealer columnist Ted Diadiun

 

 In the summer of 1967, David Glenn Molyneaux walked off the picturesque campus of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and into a far different aesthetic: the smoke-filled cacophony of the newsroom of The Plain Dealer in Cleveland. He was assigned to the newspaper’s busy police beat on Payne Avenue, housed in a tiny, noisy room so shabby that David’s father wondered aloud why his son had bothered to go to college.

 

Molyneaux in Berlin 1989

Fifty years and thousands of bylines later from all over the world, Molyneaux was inducted into the Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame during a ceremony of the Press Club of Cleveland on Thursday (Nov. 2, 2017). #PressClubCleve

 

Molyneaux had majored in business economics, and he was also an editor of the campus newspaper, The Miami Student — a combination that would serve him well. In Cleveland, after two years in the Army (1968-70), he quickly began climbing the career ladder.

 

He graduated from the police beat and late-night rewrite bank to more high-profile reporting assignments, and then rose to day city editor, to city editor, to associate editor and chief editorial writer, to editor of the editorial pages, and, for the last 24 of his 40 years at the newspaper, to editor and chief travel writer of the city’s first and only stand-alone Sunday travel section.

Friedheim Institute presents a Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Travel Literature

Heading to Orlando this morning for the 2017 D-Tour, a conference organized by the Eric Friedheim Tourism Institute at the University of Florida.

I am invited to the conference as one of five recipients of the Edith and Eric Friedheim Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Travel Literature. The award focuses on my 35 years of travel journalism, starting at The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and most recently at the Miami Herald, Dallas Morning News and other newspapers and websites that publish my travel columns, including TheTravelMavens.com, of which I am editor.

Award recipients also include writers William Least Heat-Moon, Michael Moran, Paulette Cooper Noble, and Les Standiford. 

National Geographic Traveler, New York Times Earn Top Honors in Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition

From David G. Molyneaux in Wenzhou, China

National Geographic Traveler won three gold places among eight awards and The New York Times garnered seven awards in the 2016 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition, overseen by the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation. The Los Angeles Times earned Gold for best Newspaper Travel Coverage.

Freelance writer Aaron Teasdale of Missoula, MT, is Travel Journalist of the Year for his stories about hurtling on a bicycle down mountainsides, skiing where others don’t and camping in Glacier National Park in the dead of winter. “If you want to write for cyclists, skiers, paddlers, climbers, whoever, you’ve got to live it,” says Teasdale, who was lauded by judges from the University of Missouri School of Journalism for narratives of character, tension and resolution. Teasdale also won a Gold award for Audio Travel Broadcast in Yellowstone National Park. Also honored for Grand Award travel portfolios were freelance writers Kim Brown Seely of Medina, WA, (Silver) and Peter Guttman of New York City (Bronze).

A video of winners is on Utube. List of winners and judges comments at SATWF.com

The Plain Dealer, Cleveland's Susan Glaser, honored for travel coverage

A special congratulations to my hometown newspaper, The Plain Dealer of Cleveland, Ohio, for winning the 2015 Bronze award for Best Travel Coverage in newspapers of less than 350,000 circulation, in the annual Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition.

Susan Glaser

Judges singled out The Plain Dealer's travel editor Susan Glaser:

"The energetic Susan Glaser writes the cover story or stories and adds a column each week. That gives the Cleveland Plain Dealer section a local brand. Her topics range from Disneyland to small cities in Ohio, and she writes with a sense of authority while still providing easily accessible information. Compilation stories, such as four fall getaways, add variety to the city-specific features. Stories on art exhibits and service pieces round out the section."

Glaser's work also is published on the newspaper's website, Cleveland.com.

A list of the winners, the judges’ comments, and a video of all winners are available on the website of the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation.

(Caveats: The writer of this blog, David G. Molyneaux, is president of the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation, which oversees the annual Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition. Molyneaux is not involved in the judging that is done, for payment, by a major university journalism school, which for 2015 was University of Missouri. Molyneaux also was travel editor at The Plain Dealer for 24 years, and Susan Glaser worked with Molyneaux as a travel writer and editor during some of those years.)