Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The industry also has made friends in the nonprofit media, think tanks and organiza-
tions by offering them fundraisers aboard cruise ships at special prices. These cruises offer
fans and donors the chance to spend up to a week listening to their favorite personalit-
ies. At the same time, the price they pay for the cruise fills the organization's coffers with
tens of thousands of dollars. Nonprofits from across the political spectrum take advantage
of these offers. Media stars like Diane Rehm of National Public Radio, Katrina vanden
Heuvel of
The Nation
magazine and Gwen Ifill of public television's
News Hour
, have
hosted cruises to the Caribbean and Europe for their organizations. More than one critic
has asked if it wasn't hypocritical for organizations to blithely make hundreds of thousands
of dollars on cruise ships that pay poor wages and routinely dump pollutants, the exact
practices they deplore.
On the conservative side, the
Weekly Standard
and the
National Review
magazines
famously made history when their fundraising cruise docked in Juneau, Alaska, in 2007.
The top staff and donors were welcomed by then-Governor Sarah Palin, who swept them
off their feet. When they returned to Washington, some of the editors, like Fred Barnes
of the
Standard
, promoted this fledgling politician as a bright new face of the Republican
Party. One year later Governor Palin was the Republican nominee for vice president.
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