Ok! So I cried in a good way! – And here’s why. I spent 4.5 years in the wilderness after I left Page Six and had some of the MOST OFFENSIVE SH-T told to me (EVER!) by male media execs including:
- “You’re too smart for our audience.”
- “You know what your problem is? You don’t fit in a box…” [from a cliched dude who prided himself on thinking “out of the box’]
- “Women don’t watch travel shows.”
- “You are great and so dynamic, but you’re from New York and smart. Our viewers are in the flyover states and god are they stupid. I don’t even watch the shit we put up on our screen for them…” [Me: “i’m from Ohio and Kentucky.” Dude: “Really? i would never have guessed.”]
- “We are focusing on the male demographic right now – it’s what advertisers want.” [me: so you’re only hiring male talent?; Dude: Pretty much. sorry. I know women are funny – youknow women are funny, but America doesn’t like funny women.]
- “Yeah, but whats your angle??? Everyone has to have an angle or a shtick these days!”
- “Women are really into getting married.”
- “Women don’t want funny travel books or essays – they only buy travel books if there is a journey involved. You know, like Eat, Pray Love.”
- “You are so smart and funny and cool… I just wouldn’t know what to do with you.”
- “You know what women like? Women really like beach shows. Like where the best beaches are…”
- “You have really sexy shoes”
- “We need to start figuring out how to get people to start buying TVs again.”
So.. along came a piece by Joe Pompeo who… got me. And got my story. It made me cry. After the jump is an excerpt, but you should read the whole thing. It’s lovely.
Excerpt:
After a decade of churning out salacious scoops on the likes of Whitney Houston’s drug habit and Britney Spears’ pregnancy, Froelich left Page Six in 2009 with a clean slate and an urge to cultivate the wanderlust she’d carried around since her post-college travels through India, Nepal and Thailand. Freelance gigs at places likePlayboy and The Daily Beast kept her busy and paid the bills, but what she really wanted was to develop her own travel brand with a populist ethos and a humorous tone—only no one was biting. “I pitched to everyone,” she said. “If someone was in charge of something, I did a pony show.”
Frustrated by what seemed like a prohibitive bar for entry in a male-dominated medium, Froelich decided to go it alone. In January, she launched A Broad Abroad, a website promising “Tales And Tips From Around The Globe.” Around the same time, Froelich landed a few far flung assignments for Newsweek and persuaded the magazine to put her on staff. Then life lobbed its next curve-ball: She was introduced to a Yahoo executive so impressed with A Broad Abroad that Froelich was offered the keys to Yahoo Travel and a chance to start her own video series.
…
Froelich, for her part, seems like she knows just how to get a digital media brand going. Her online presence betrays a tireless metabolism as she jaunts from African death markets to Mexican amusement parks to Burmese nunneries. Along the way, she posts videos and photos and status updates that lend an aspirational appeal to her Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter feeds while also promoting the brand.
Yahoo Travel itself, manned by a staff of six, is a mix of service (how to do Mexico on $17 a day), viral lists (“10 Vacation Trains That Are Totally Off The Rails”), narratives (tabloid legend George Rush scales Mount Kenya), news (Ebola and air travel) and Froelich’s web show, which kept the name “A Broad Abroad” (recent installment: “Spend the Best Day of Your Life in an Elephant Retirement home”).
Yahoo wouldn’t provide revenue or traffic figures, but the site is lush with sponsored content, and the measurement firm comScore clocked 11.9 million unique U.S. visitors (up 41 percent from a year earlier) for the month of October, making Yahoo Travel the No. 2 American travel website, sandwiched between TripAdvisor and USAToday Travel.
Froelich said that six months in, the site is already proving its value: “We’re lean and mean and we do make money.” As for her latest career pivot, she summed it up like this: “I feel like Cinderella.”
I’m so happy for you, Paula! I read that article, too, when a friend at Yahoo shared it on his Facebook timeline, and it rattled me nearly to the point of tears myself. I’m 11 years into my career, most of which I’ve spent in the travel-writing business. The last year and a half have taken me on a couple of detours as I try to figure out my place, grow my savings, and climb a bit higher. Well, it’s never been more clear to me that the travel business was and is where I belong. Now six months into another new job, which pays better and is higher ranking than any I’ve had before, I don’t feel like myself, I’m sad, and I feel detached, yet some friends and even family keep telling me I’ll “grow into it.” There’s nothing more lonely and isolating than the feeling that no one understands where you’re coming from, or the need to do something that fulfills you and feeds your passion. Joe Pompeo’s story about your experience made me feel that someone got me the way he did you. It made me feel like I wasn’t alone. I’m so happy you found your place. I’ll be keeping your story in mind (and reading about your adventures) as I find mine.
thank you… and good luck – im rooting for you! and dont worry about what other people say – listen to yourself. be true to yourself and focus on what you want. we only go around once.
DO NOT LISTEN : I just came across your site from glancing at yahoo and love what you’re doing and hope you will see your vision for Abroad Abroad come true. The world Watches Countless of hours of TV and its sad to see that many of those hours are filled with poisonous and stereotypical material that subliminally degrades you. Anyway will watch for new updates from here out as you continue.
Good Luck and Safe journey -Male Fan
thank you!
I lpve reading your blogs. I admire your courage to go to dangerous places and your humorous thoughts about the fun places. Keep it up, and ignore the naysayers.
I love watching your videos. You show a side of travel that we usually don’t get to see – and with a bit of humor built in. You get to know the people and respect their customs. And you make mistakes – like letting the Dead Sea salt get in your eyes and having to be led out of the water by your assistant. You talk to the camera like you’re talking to a friend. You show aspects of travel we don’t usually get to see – like when you were in Greenland (or was it Iceland – sorry, can’t remember which one) and you showed how many layers of clothing you needed to wear to stay warm. You make me want to go give an elephant a bath, and lick a dinosaur bone, and . . . well, I could go on on. Suffice it to say, keep on traveling and making your videos.
cindy – thank you… that was so nice of you to say! (it was greenland – AND iceland – they were both freezing! heh)… have a lovely week.
You seem so free when you are filming. You look like you are having so much fun and you say the craziest and funniest things… I think that is the magic of your show. Big Kudos for all of you. Give us more…………
thank you! you made my day!