Ron Stodghill
Publisher of Detour
Telling travel stories for once-marginalized audiences
Ron Stodghill has had a long career in journalism, having been a staff writer at the New York Times, editor-in-chief at Savoy (an African-American lifestyle and business publication), and a senior writer and Midwest bureau chief for Time. He’s also written multiple books, most recently “Where Everybody Looks Like Me: At the Crossroads of America’s Black Colleges and Culture.”
And while he’s also a professor at the Missouri School of Journalism, his current passion project is serving as publisher of Detour, a multimedia publication focused on the experiences of Black travelers.
Stodghill says he wants Detour to be a space where any Black traveler (and especially Black women) can see and hear themselves exploring the world from an authentically Black perspective. For him, Detour is a way to tell stories about how Black people engage in places where they have always been present, but never fully represented.
By Bill Meincke
Advances in digital media have intersected with a growing desire among Black people to travel and view the world through an authentically Black lens. By “authentic,” I simply mean putting Black people first in our storytelling about place and culture, which gives publications like Detour a distinct voice in travel journalism.
We’re also fortunate to have launched during a moment of tremendous opportunity. Our audience of Black women travelers has been building its community behind the scenes for several generations. Now in Detour they have a platform that even further connects them through the power of storytelling, in seeing and hearing themselves exploring food, fashion, music, art, museums, and festivals globally.
I want readers of Detour to understand and appreciate that connecting to their own history is healthy, liberating, and inspiring.
Stories from the Past Illuminate Our Present
The movements of Black people historically have been restrained or prevented. That creates an interesting and often sad connection to a destination or place.
At the same time, it offers an opportunity to tell a different kind of travel story about how we engage and shape places where we have always been present, just never in the lens.
For example, telling a story about antebellum homes where there were fabulous Southern dinners. Behind the place was a pretty good chef, classically trained, with a name, a family, dreams, and thoughts. That’s rich for any journalist. This doesn’t feel like a civil rights story, as much as it just feels like fantastic storytelling that will be positive for the community.
The animated documentary “The Whitewashing of Missouri” is a signature piece for Detour, in that it takes in what might be considered a conventional story about a place (Pierce City, Missouri) and turns it on its head by approaching it through a Black lens.
For several generations, we’ve been hearing about these “sundown towns,” places across the U.S. where Black residents were purged through violence and fear. We tell a story about how a Black woman’s quest to learn more about her ancestors led her to find an episode of racial violence against her family in the early 1900s in Pierce City — an episode repeated in other towns across Missouri around that time.
This racial cleansing, or “whitewashing,” still shapes the demographic makeup in cities and towns across the state.
Using Tech to Connect Black Travelers
Over my lifetime, and especially over the past couple of decades, there’s been so much innovation in storytelling and in media generally. But the pandemic gave me some new clarity about the power and purpose of our devices and how to best optimize them in this infinite digital world that’s been created around us.
At the same time, as I sat sequestered and scrolling my iPhone gallery or FaceTiming or Zooming for two years, I couldn’t help but wonder whether we’d ever get back outdoors again, feel the freedom to physically visit each other and venture out into new places. I did know that, at minimum, people everywhere held in their hands the capability to share stories and images about places where they’d already traveled. So, along with my love for both Black culture and journalism, Detour was inspired by the idea that digital technology offers an opportunity for Black travelers to connect and share stories and information that can ultimately enrich our journeys.
Most of all, there is a tremendous opportunity in connecting with Black women travelers, who continue to out-index the rest of the world in terms of entrepreneurial development and purchasing power. We want to be her trusted guide as she commits more of her time and financial resources on travel.
The market isn’t necessarily speaking directly to the Black woman traveler, but Detour is working to create content that lets her know we exist for her: highlighting foreign countries and cities where she’s likely to feel most safe, offering guidance on lodging and outings that will appeal to her kids or companion, or giving tips on hair styles and stylists she can tap during her journey.
The Trials of a Young Publication
Any travel through a Black lens, any story where you’re trying to tell someone else’s story, wasn’t always that accessible. In-depth stories about Black travel had been sanitized. There has always been stories from a white industry for white audiences, but eventually, people started questioning narratives: “There’s actually another story out there, and it’s harmful if you don’t hear it.” I think folks have started to accept that.
One challenge is identifying all this talent out there that hasn’t really had a platform. Super-talented Black creators are working for big media brands, men and women creative directors who are making beaucoup money. They’re in the industry, but they’re not doing stuff for the community. Who can afford them?
Any travel through a Black lens, any story where you’re trying to tell someone else’s story, wasn’t always that accessible. In-depth stories about Black travel had been sanitized.
What I try to do is put something out that gets in front of them one day. Hopefully they want to join and play. Whatever they’re doing, I know there’s a voice inside of them that wants to do something else, something that touches their soul in a different kind of way.
I see a future of richly diverse storytelling from all over the world. We’re making a statement at Detour, and it makes me feel really good.