Could Junkets Serve a Journalistic Purpose?

David Weddle’s article “Swagland” (Jan. 16) suggests that media articles resulting from junkets can mislead readers. I was doing public relations for an architectural firm that designed the Contemporary Resort Hotel at Disney World -- a revolutionary project. Our firm and the Walt Disney Co. held a media event in Orlando, but the leading architectural magazine would not pay for an editor in New York to travel to Orlando. We offered to pay the editor’s expenses, but his publication refused to accept the junket.

As a result, after the event in Orlando I flew to New York, gave a press kit to the editor and answered his questions--from which he wrote his article. Question: Were his readers better served by an article written from a press kit and the information from a public relations person, or would they have been better served by an article written from on-site inspection and information directly from the architects, engineers, hotel experts and Disney top brass?

Martin A. Brower

Corona del Mar

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Publicist Kelly Cutrone’s simile likening the greed of the Hollywood media to “a 99-Cents store on a welfare payday” demonstrates her lack of sensitivity. Not everyone is able to wander Rodeo Drive with an expense account. Those removed from such a wonderland have to make ends meet.

Bruce B. Billings Jr.

Cathedral City