Author has reason to diss Hereford

“Don’t Go There.”
No, let’s go there.
On Nov. 11, the public can get its hands on the book “Don’t Go There: The Travel Detective’s Essential Guide to the Must-Miss Places of the World.” I got my preview copy on Monday.
The book, from Rodale, is written by Peter Greenberg, travel editor for NBC’s Today Show. It came with a red tab on page 53, which begins a segment about Hereford. The city is second behind Putnam County, Mo., to be skewered by Greenberg in chapter 4, “Places that Really Stink.”
It’s no secret that Hereford is known for its “smell of money.” That’s one of the side-effects to being in the center of the Beef Capital of the World. And yes, there are times it makes your eyes water and nose wrinkle just to walk outside.
As anyone who lives here knows, it’s not like that every day. In fact, the sweet smell of grain permeates the air much more than cow dung. I also happen to find the smell of the ethanol plant to be quite pleasing.
In reading Greenberg’s description of Hereford, you would think the whole town reeks of manure and that we practically bathe in it. He makes it sound like cows roam free in town and that the streets are paved with cow patties.
I don’t know about you, but I haven’t stepped in a fresh one in, oh, about three or four weeks now. And it wasn’t in town either. And the last time I had to bathe because of cow chips was in the early 1980s, but that was at a Scout camp and I was on the losing end of a cow puck chuck contest that got out of hand.
After reading the blurb about Hereford in Greenberg’s book and thumbing through other parts of it, I kept asking myself why on earth anyone would write such a negative book. Why would a travel editor focus on places NOT to go? Surely he must know that he is insulting peoples’ homes and their livelihoods.
I found the answer in the introduction. For him, it’s a matter of honest, responsible journalism. As a journalist myself, I have to respect that. Still, this isn’t the kind of book one writes to make friends and influence people.
(OK, maybe it will influence people, but not for the right reasons.)
In his introduction, Greenberg talks about how irresponsible it is for travel writers to not give the bad with the good in their reports. He talks about living in Houston while a correspondent with Newsweek. “I hated Houston,” he said, before going on to gripe about the dirty beaches of Galveston. It shows a clear bias against Texas.
Greenberg said the purpose of his book is to point out to people places they may not want to consider for their next vacation, or to at least make them aware of things (crime, odor, political corruption, etc.) that they won’t find in travel brochures.
“Now, I know I will be accused of being unfairly subjective, and there will be claims that I inserted facts out of context, that I somehow violated the spirit of travel journalism by not being a promoter of travel.
“Well, guess what? I have never worked for the travel industry. I report on it – good (and sometimes very good), bad, and yes, quite often ugly. Travel writing is not about being part of a popularity contest. Like all other reporting, it’s about presenting – no promoting – facts that allow people to make reasonably intelligent, independent decisions about the choices available to them,” he wrote.
I do have to respect his writings about dirty hotels, lousy airports, crime-ridden communities, dangerous roads and other things travelers should know about. And while I find what he had to say about Hereford a slap in the face, I have to confess my own guilt of writing about Hereford’s lack of appeal as a tourist destination just a few weeks ago.
Maybe this book is the wake-up call our civic leaders need to start thinking about things and events that could make Hereford a travel destination.
The alternative is to let Greenberg stand unchallenged and let the rest of the world go on thinking we’re just a stinky little cow town out in the middle of nowhere – even if it is true.