Manta Media

Hey! So, you may have seen from the title of this blog that my name is Sarah Harvey and I'm a journalist (news, travel and lifestyle) and content creator/copy-writer. Currently living in my 5th country, visited around 30 so far, and counting! 

This is my personal blog, just for fun (I get paid to write other people's!) and it is not meant to be a professional profile. Recruiters; my career profile is here: Manta Media and also here on LinkedIn and here on MuckRack, for media pros.
 
I've been working in media for 10+ years. Here's a bit of background, being as many people have the same popular name as me and you wouldn't want to get us confused! (You only realize the full horror of this when you Google yourself and find bedroom-bloggers with the same name as yourself who may have blogged about the same country but don't know the difference between 'there', 'they're' and 'their' - yikes.) So just to be clear; writing is still my full-time gig and it's all I've ever done (OK, except for that time I waitressed during the holidays while I was studying at university). Writing pays for the roof over my head, the food I eat, and the rather yummy Spanish wine I currently enjoy...it's my life.  And it's both a pleasure and a privilege to be paid to write for a living, for which I'm very grateful.

Me, with red hair then, checking out a reef in the Maldives

I started off as a newspaper journalist, survived 14-hour days and newsroom chaos, paid my dues and worked my way up.You don't get to review five star resorts without paying your dues somewhere first, no matter what some people may try to tell you when they're flogging their 'Become a digital nomad' courses... 

What's the difference between a journalist and a blogger? 

A professional code of standards and ethics! You can read all about it here, but in short, journalists like myself are professionally-trained to do the following: 

• Seek the truth and report it
• Verify accuracy of all information
• Provide context
• Diligently seek the subject of allegations and offer them the right to reply

The above refers to everything I write for magazines, newspapers, news portals and also my own blog (although this code of ethics doesn't apply to bloggers, haha, but I can't help myself.)  I'm also meticulous with research when I'm writing for blogs as a guest writer or ghost writer and super fast because of my journalistic background. In addition, I'm not a travel agent so the integrity of my writing and reviews hasn't been compromised. I do have links to Booking.com on my website, but I'm not recommending any hotels in particular due to advertising influences, you can pick anything you want!

Side-note: I think there might be a need for a code of ethics to be implemented for travel bloggers because it's currently like the Wild West, people get paid to say whatever the hotel tells them to say and that harms everyone in the long-run if they're misleading the public - not to mention people will realise when they're been misled and that harms the industry - but let's not go there right now! 

So in addition to journalism, I do B2B and B2C copy-writing or content creation (ghost-blogging, static content for travel and tourism websites, social media management etc). But I'm still a journalist at heart, so yeah, of course I always double-checks the facts from reliable sources (not Wikipedia). People seem to appreciate that, which is nice, and leads to quite a lot of referrals.

1 of my front page news articles

Back to travel journalism and travel writing: Travel has always been a passion since I was very young, and during the start of my career I was lucky enough to be able to write about hotels and holiday destinations alongside the current event. I reviewed the Zetter Restaurant & Rooms, Clerkenwell; Malmaison London, COMO Metropolitan Bangkok and Raffles Singapore. I also wrote about family holidays in Hungary and a gastronomy trip to Portugal. 

Then in 2010 I was invited to the Maldives to be News Editor of a daily travel and tourism news portal and annual guide. It gave me incredible access to the Maldives' world-famous luxury resorts and I've been to about 80% of the 110+ resorts there.

Recognizing the demand for native English-speaking travel journalism and media services in the Maldives, I set up Manta Media the following year; an alliance of creatives. It includes multi-lingual journalists, bloggers, photographers, videographers and media consultants. All of the translators I use are also journalists, so they don't just regurgitate a translation verbatim; they craft the words and find the most appropriate regional idioms where necessary.

I continue to visit and write about the Indian Ocean region as well as Spain, the French Riviera, and Scandinavia.

My feet enjoying the Indian Ocean

My areas of expertise encompass travel, luxury tourism, eco-tourism, conservation and scuba diving (as a certified PADI Advanced Diver). 
For more information visit my work website at www.manta-media.com 

Ciao!