Travel and Shop Editorial

I haven't been keeping up with the blog as much as I wanted to in India and I can't believe I'm saying this but I going to sympathize with Brooke Lougrin (an SYA classmate of mine) who said that she didn't have time to keep up with her blog because she wasn't at the Park but actually out and about doing stuff. While I may feel like I haven't done much and will have to leave a good portion of my to do list unfinished, I feel like I've always been moving since I've gotten here (if only if circles). I wanted to post my editorial for the Travel and Shop magazine where I interned earlier, but despite having not explained the scope of my internship I still want it to be my last post while here in India. I will continue to post about my adventures when I'm back in the states even though that seems kind of silly considering blogging should be to keep people updated in the here and now and not be a re-cap I think. Anyways, here is my editorial. I was upset that the version that went to print didn't include the bit about Mumbai and picked up with "I am connected to this city...", but more so I'm upset that they changed "this city" (in the part I just referred to) to Bangalore. I choose "this city" because of it's ambiguity. After all, the entire editorial is about whether to say Bangalore or Bangaluru and I wanted to reveal my choice of name at the end after I had given an explanation. So I will first show you what I wrote, the edited version and then what was printed. (In the editor's defense, he did help me clarify the last paragraph which I left rather ambiguous because I had a word limit and was already beyond it. This is one thing that I love about journalism and a job in general, you can't just bull shit your way through things: if you don't give your best and believe its your best someone is going to call you out on it and tell you so).

All me...
Bangalore or Bangaluru?
I came to Bangaluru perhaps expecting to find myself in Bangalore. Of course I had heard of the city but not until I booked my flight to come here did I discover that its name had officially changed. So Bangalore or Bangaluru, I wondered.
When I traveled to Mumbai I too struggled with how to refer to it. Many stores had the name Bombay attached to them and still more people called the city by its former name. I felt a certain affinity with the city after witnessing the 26/11 attacks from elsewhere on Indian soil and realized that the very real tragedy occurred to the modern city that is Mumbai, not to the bygone city of Bombay.
While Bangalore too suffered from terrorist attacks last year, I was not acutely aware of them. I am connected to this city not by an event, but by a person.
Thomas Friedman is a Pulitzer Prize winning American journalist who wrote the book The World Is Flat in 2005 after visiting Bangalore. Some years ago I became a devoted reader of his column in the New York Times, but had not opened his book until just a few days ago.
I had intended to read the book before I came, but as look would have it I couldn’t find a copy, that is until I spotted a hawker selling a boot-legged version on the streets of New Tipsandra. The book explains that several factors, the IT boom among them, are flattening the global playing field. As Friedman testified, places like Electronic City are no different from comparable work places in the West.
It may appear that the city hasn’t changed all that much since then, but flipping through the pages of this magazine I find Bangaluru.

Edited version (I really liked)
Bangalore or Bangaluru?
I came to Bangaluru perhaps expecting to find myself in Bangalore. Of course I had heard of the city but not until I booked my flight to come here did I discover that its name had officially changed. So Bangalore or Bangaluru, I wondered.
When I traveled to Mumbai I too struggled with how to refer to it. Many stores had the name Bombay attached to them and still more people called the city by its former name. I felt a certain affinity with the city after witnessing the 26/11 attacks from elsewhere on Indian soil and realized that the very real tragedy occurred to the modern city that is Mumbai, not to the bygone city of Bombay.
While Bangalore too suffered from terrorist attacks last year, I was not acutely aware of them. I am connected to this city not by an event, but by a person.
Thomas Friedman is a Pulitzer Prize winning American journalist who wrote the book The World Is Flat in 2005 after visiting Bangalore. Some years ago I became a devoted reader of his column in the New York Times, but had not opened his book until just a few days ago.
I had intended to read the book before I came, but as look would have it I couldn’t find a copy, that is until I spotted a hawker selling a boot-legged version on the streets of New Tipsandra. The book explains that several factors, the IT boom among them, are flattening the global playing field for aspiring workers. As Friedman testified,places like Electronic City are no different from comparable workplaces in the West.While the IT sector may still be booming, flipping through the pages of this magazine I find a unique city like nowhere in the West.Because let’s face it, no matter how flat the world gets you’ll never be able to get a fish curry from Koshys anywhere but in Bangaluru.

What appeared in print...
Bangalore or Bangaluru?
I came to Bangaluru perhaps expecting to find myself in Bangalore. Of course I had heard of the city but not until I booked my flight to come here did I discover that its name had officially changed. So Bangalore or Bangaluru, I wondered. I am connected to Bangalore not by an event, but by a person.
Thomas Friedman is a Pulitzer Prize winning American journalist who wrote the book The World Is Flat in 2005 after visiting Bangalore. Some years ago I became a devoted reader of his column in the New York Times, but had not opened his book until just a few days ago.
I had intended to read the book before I came, but as look would have it I couldn’t find a copy, that is until I spotted a hawker selling a boot-legged version on the streets of Bangalore. The book explains that several factors, the IT boom among them, are flattening the global playing field for aspiring workers. As Friedman testified,places like Electronic City are no different from comparable workplaces in the West.While the IT sector may still be booming, flipping through the pages of this magazine I find a unique city like nowhere in the West.Because let’s face it, no matter how flat the world gets you’ll never be able to get a dosa from Koshys anywhere but in Bangaluru.

Also note that New Tipsandra is changed to Bangalore. While I feel this small name change makes the reference less personal, I do understand tourists (let alone Indians from Bangalore, Bangalorites?) may not know Tipsandra.
As much as I dislike the fact that the editor has the final say, I suppose if I had followed directons and stayed within the word count this wouldn't have happened.