Who We Are

Four former newsmagazine correspondents living in different parts of the world started the East West News Service in the late 1990s. The concept was that each journalist would complete his own freelance assignment, then ask his colleagues to help resell his story. The idea was sound but eventually foundered on the fact that none of the journalists really wanted to spend time selling a story that was not their own.

In 2008, the company was relaunched under the name U.S.-China Travel News to coincide with the Beijing Olympics. The focus was on Pacific Rim travel but the name was too restrictive.

In 2013, the company reorganized again under its old name and in its present form with the goal of publishing timely, well written and factually accurate travel and cultural analysis of compelling destinations. EWNS articles and travel writing focus on the history, culture and economy of a location, hopefully providing enough information so that once the traveler arrives he or she knows what to look for as well as where to go. On numerous occasions our articles have been recognized by the Overseas Press Club of America and awarded top honors by the Society of American Travel Writers and the North American Travel Journalists Association.

David DeVoss

East - West News Editor and Senior Correspondent

East West News Service - David - Bio Shot

David DeVoss has been a professional journalist since 1968 when he joined the Time-Life News Service as the youngest staff correspondent in the history of Time Magazine. He worked in Houston, Montreal and Detroit before becoming a war correspondent at age 24 in Saigon. After four years in Los Angeles covering the music industry, he returned to Asia in 1977 serving as Time’s Hong Kong correspondent and Bangkok Bureau Chief before moving to Mexico City to report on the wars in Central America.

In 1985, the Los Angeles Times hired DeVoss to be a Special Correspondent with the Los Angeles Times Magazine. While there he won three national writing awards in four years. Then he became the Americas Correspondent and Editor for Asia, Inc. and Asia Times, a business magazine and newspaper published by the Manager Media Group in Thailand.

In 1998, after 30 years in journalism, DeVoss entered the field of International Development. He headed a $2.5 million print media development program in Bosnia & Herzegovina before moving to East Timor where he helped a number of struggling publications become sustainable by helping the UN Transition Authority establish a print media consortium.

DeVoss served as the Senior Information Officer for the U.S. Agency for International Development in Baghdad in 2004 and 2005. From 2008 to 2013 he worked as the Director of Communications on USAID projects in Afghanistan and Iraq, the latter a $192 million effort to create a private sector in the previously state-centralized economy.

While working for the Los Angeles Times DeVoss won national writing awards from AP, the Sporting News and the Art Directors Club of New York, plus the Unity Award in Media from Lincoln University in Missouri. In 2000, 2003, 2004 and 2011 DeVoss received the Best Magazine Story of the year Gold Award from the Society of American Travel Writers for work appearing in Smithsonian. In 2008, his essay on the Natchez Trace garnered a Silver Award from SATW. In 2014, he won the Gold Prize for travel writing from the North American Travel Journalists Association.
The author of seven books, DeVoss also serves as a part-time Visiting Professor at the Hebei Institute of Communications in Shijiazhuang, China.

Contribution Policy

The East-West News Service welcomes editorial contributions from established journalists. Submissions must be sent electronically in single spaced Times New Roman type and accompanied by a selection of high resolution photographs plus a brief author’s bio at the end of the story. Please send to info@eastwestnewsservice.com. In order to insure accuracy, contact information must accompany the names of all persons quoted.

In certain cases, the EWNS will reprint articles published elsewhere if the author owns the rights to the story and photographs and the editorial content meets the needs of EWNS.

Awards