A prime example of a brilliant and switched-on PR

Wrapping up a week at MediaCity in Salford has prompted me to write about a positive PR experience I had when I was last up there. 

The backstory:

5pm and no guest in sight 

I was working on a story for the Today programme that I thought would be very easy to organise: I needed a hotel/leisure analyst to come on the show the next morning to discuss some industry news that had emerged that day. Sourcing that guest should have been simple but for some reason, it wasn’t (perhaps because it was very much holiday season). I was calling and emailing PRs and press offices and throwing out multiple LinkedIn messages. Towards the end of the day – about 5pm - I contacted a PR called Ed, an experienced in-house PR for a financial services firm. Though it was almost the end of the day when I spoke to him, he gave the impression he was going to go out of his way to see if any of his analyst colleagues would be available. Ed continued to keep me in the loop. About an hour later, he found someone. But Ed was upfront: his analyst hadn’t been on live radio before. “To be honest, we wouldn’t usually just throw him on the Today programme.” (For anyone not in the UK, Radio 4’s Today programme is probably viewed as the most prestigious radio programme and is the radio show most businesses aspire to feature on). But he was confident in his knowledge and ability. 

“Look,” I said. “I’ll be briefing and interviewing him. If I don’t think he's good enough, he won’t be going on.” 

At 7pm we all jumped on a call (usually I like one-to-one briefings but given everyone’s slight apprehension, the PR was on there too). 

I put Mr Analyst through a round of questions. And you know what, I wouldn’t have known at all that this was going to be his first live radio rodeo. He came across as confident, articulate, and knowledgeable. I reassured him that I thought he was excellent. 

I called Ed afterwards to reiterate what I’d said. 

And then 15 minutes later I had to call ed again. Actually, can Mr Analyst come on another radio show - Wake Up to Money - an hour earlier? (About 5.30am!). Ed and I agreed that actually this was a great opportunity - yes, he’d have to set his alarm clock an hour earlier, but he had the chance to go through a similar interview with the same presenter on a different show and build his confidence. 

But it also meant poor Ed – already staying way past his working day to help organise this – would also be getting up even earlier so he could be awake during both interviews. 

And the next day, Mr Analyst was fantastic, with strong feedback from the editor and the rest of the team. I text Ed to thank him for his hard work in making the interview him.

Throughout all my interactions with Ed, he stood out. He was experienced, assured, on the ball, and transparent - he was upfront about Mr Analyst’s lack of experience but also in his confidence in him. He worked late and had a very early wake-up call. He kept me in the loop. I wasn’t having to chase and chase. I felt like I could trust him. 

Everyone gained something from the situation. We delivered a great guest who could explain the topic with ease and expertise, while Ed saw his analyst presented as an expert on two national radio shows. It meant that Mr Analyst is now down as an expert on the BBC's system, meaning any journalist needing an expert in the hotel/leisure industry has his contact information to hand. It's also meant that I would contact Ed again in a heartbeat if I needed an analyst perspective.

So a big thanks to all the hardworking PRs putting in the extra effort and time behind the scenes.

Don't forget freelance journalists

I want to remind any PRs reading this to nurture relationships with freelance hacks. Many PRs and business owners tend to focus more heavily on in-house journalists and forget about the freelancers out there. But here's why you should hone in more on freelance journalists:

👏 They can work with you across several titles. I'm currently working with two PRs who will see their client secure coverage in two titles each. A while back I worked with a PR on a profile slot for the BBC and a half-page piece in the Guardian. Freelance journalists = more opportunities for press coverage.

👏 Your pitch is more likely to be picked up. Staff inboxes can be messy. Mine is nothing like how it was when I was on staff. I'm not working on a busy newsdesk meaning I'm more likely to answer targeted pitches.

👏 Also, if your pitch doesn't work for the place you had in mind when you pitched a freelance journalist, they can also consider where else it might work. If you pitch an in-house journalist, you have one shot. Not so with a freelancer.

And don't forget:

👏 To invite freelancers to events and on press trips. Since I shifted over to freelance life in 2011, the number of invites I receive has fallen off a cliff - despite working for larger publications. With fewer invites landing in their inbox and fewer sociable work opportunities, arguably a freelance journalist is more likely to come to your event. (I know it’s harder for me to attend events now as many are in London and I live in Margate, and I’m pretty nomadic, but when I lived in London I would definitely have attended more PR events if invited).

For more tips, come along to one of my Lessons from a Journalist workshops or webinars.

Drop me a line if you have any questions. I offer discounts for three people or more attending any of the workshops. If anyone is self-employed and struggling with the price, send me a message and I'll see what I can do. 

The best year of my freelance career – but one of the worst financially

Last week saw another article from my six-month trip across Central and North America published. The piece for BBC News looked at the rise of data centres in the drought-hit state of Querétaro in Mexico. 

After eight months of work - from research stage to editing - I was obviously very pleased to see it finally published. This was a story I’d actually started working on around December/January, back when I was scouting out sustainability-focused stories to cover while I was in the region. Alongside the investigation on missing people in Jalisco (yet to be commissioned), it was one of the biggest stories I was exploring, involving months of research and emails with data centres, a trade association with poor comms (maybe a subject to dissect another time), and activists.

In June I finally visited Querétaro, a charming city north of Mexico City, to meet the activists (sadly after so much to-ing and fro-ing a visit to a data centre was cancelled days before my planned visit) just a week before I was due to leave Mexico. And so I made the five-hour journey (taxi/bus/taxi) there. On the evening I arrived, I made a beeline for dinner (falafel – sometimes you need to eat something other than the food of the country you're in, though god, do I now miss mole, tacos and chilaquiles) and started talking to the waiter. It turned out he had strong views on the water situation in the city so I whipped out my voice recorder and ended up interviewing him as I waited for my dinner. Riccardo also recommended  a visit to the local aqueduct, a pink dazzling beauty that I visited post dinner. 

The next day I rose early to attend a local press conference concerning some of the water issues in area. With my poco Espanol, I can't say I understood all of it but I definitely gauged how passionate people were about the alleged lack of transparency and exploitation of their natural resources. Afterwards, I had an impromptu interview with a chap who had an insider view on the water situation. Meanwhile, my activist contact had gone AWOL and left the press conference to work from a café 15 minutes away so following the conference I had to go and find her. The interview took place over tacos in a colourful cafe. All bueno. But following the interview she said she didn’t want me to include her comment on the data centres – the exact reason I had visited - and instead wanted to focus on a different topic. A short but tough conversation followed. I’d spent six months on this story and needed this interview. Two days later she followed up and insisted she didn’t want her name attached to a comment on the data centres. In the end we added her comment but said she didn’t want to talk directly about the data centres. 

Meanwhile, the second activist hadn’t turned up at the press conference, even though she told me the day before that she was. In the end, after more to-ing and fro-ing, her partner kindly came to collect me and drove me to their house about 20 minutes away. Fortunately I was able to find translator who could join us. Phew. I spent about an hour with her and thankfully got the quotes I needed. Post-interview, I grabbed more falafel and took a taxi/bus/taxi back to Mexico City (well, the bus was full so I had to wait an hour for the next one). And then it was hours of finding and interviewing a data centre boss over Zoom, putting the piece together, editing, and chasing the local government for weeks for comment before eventually the piece was finally published. 

I’ve gone into detail here as I wanted to highlight the time and effort (and challenges) that goes into a story. The struggles of landing an interview. Financially, I take a huge hit. And this is in the case with most stories apart from if I'm just interviewing one person (like my celeb interviews), as everything else take a very long time to put together. Hours and hours of research. From researching an idea to landing a commission to an editor happy with the final piece can take weeks, if not months. And for sums around £300, sometimes much lower. 

As you can see, it’s not financially viable at all. 

This year I’ve had the best year of my career: I looked the efforts to preserve Lake Bacalar (The Evening Standard); how to save money backpacking in which I talk of my stay with 70-year-old Bette via Host a Sister (Guardian), the NGO at Lake Atitlan (The I Paper); the efforts by Armando Lopez Pocol to reforest the western highlands of Guatemala (my first piece for Guardian Global Development), the Dutch no-fly break for the I Paper, interviewed Belinda Carlisle for the Telegraph, established myself as a regular writer for the Fame & Fortune section in The Sunday Times where I have interviewed Sarah Parish, Natalie Cassidy, Carol Decker, and many others. I’ve also started writing for a regular section for the I Paper, and am a freelancer for the Today programme (when I’m around!). Though I could always be achieving more, I’m holding up ok career-wise. 

Yet, financially, this isn’t reflected in my bank account. Yes, I’ve gone travelling (but was still very much working), but in my accounts filed in December (before my travels), I had a pretty disastrous year (my work income equated to a sum I was earning when I was 25). This financial year to April probably looks the same as what I earned when I was about 30. I’m fortunate that, for now, I can rent out my place when I’m not here and that boosts my income. But currently, my situation is not sustainable. Despite my courses, workshops, Power Hours and content network, it’s very tough. Even the well-established journalist Terri White recently said she had £9 in her bank account. Terri White. The former editor-in-chief of Empire magazine, author and filmmaker. 

I’m making moves to find an additional career path. There are no plans exit journalism, but if it comes off it’ll be another string to the bow, though again not a big money earner. I’m not motivated by money but I’d just like to be paid a rate that reflects the hours and work invested alongside almost 20 years’ journalism experience.

And so, despite being very happy and busy with my journalist endeavours but woefully underpaid, I'm seeking more work. This could involve editorial, interviewing and writing up case studies, working on investigations, consultancy, and so on, across areas that feel like a natural fit (it's a big no for sectors such as oil and gas, fast fashion, aviation, and so on). Ideally, I’d like the work to be consistent but am open to one-off opportunities too. Just swing me an email to start the conversation.

How a shocking news story about my osteopath led to a first-person piece in The Times

Some of you may have seen the story about my depraved osteopath but I wanted to recap for the blog and throw in some advice that might be helpful when pitching opinion and personal pieces for you or your client. 

The day after I arrived back from my travels, I called for an appointment with my long-standing osteopath of 11 years. A man I saw regularly and liked. I was told he no longer worked there, and after repeated requests for more information, I was advised to look online. And there I was confronted with news article after article about him being charged for voyeurism earlier this year. And then when I checked again later that afternoon, on that particular day Torben Herborg was sentenced to three years and five months for eight counts of voyeurism. He had been caught spying on female students outside their halls of residence, armed with a camera and telescope, and wearing black gloves with black bin liners on the seat. And more details emerged. Torben had been targeting thousands of women for years, taking pictures and recordings of them on the beach, in their homes, on public transport and in his treatment clinic.

My head spun when I heard the news. I felt sick, betrayed and confused. I couldn’t compute that this was the same man I’d known for so long. A friendly family man who spoke proudly of his children and his work.

The news broke across the nationals soon after he was sentenced. At first it didn’t even occur to me to write anything; I was just was feeling utterly bewildered. And then as hours past, probably about 11pm, I thought that my perspective as a client of Torben's might make an interesting first-person piece. The nationals had covered his sentencing but I knew that they might be interested in a follow-up article with people connected to Torben. That night I formulated a pitch. A short and effective shot at catching an editor's attention. This is what I sent (but timed to land at 8am):

Subject line: 

Pitch: I was a client of one of London's worst voyeurs 

Hi [name of editor]

Hope all is well. 

I'm a freelance journalist for The Sunday Times, BBC and Guardian and I wondered if you might be interested in a first-person piece on being one of the Torben Stig Hersborg's clients. Osteopath Hersborg was jailed yesterday at Snaresbrook Crown Court, sentenced to three years and five months in prison for eight counts of voyeurism. It's a story that has attracted a lot of press. He was named as one of London's worst voyeurs. 

I was a client of Torben's for well over 10 years. I can describe what it was like to be his client and how I feel now after his secrets have been uncovered. It has emerged that he secretly filmed and photographed thousands of women in his clinic. Now I'm left wondering if I'm one of them. 

More info on the case here: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/torben-stig-hersborg-jekyll-hyde-osteopath-london-voyeurism-spying-students-naked-b1239517.html

Thanks

Susie

I sent it to The Sunday Times news editor but after not hearing back for an hour and knowing time is of the essence, I realised I needed to widen my net. And so I sent to it to the T2 editor at The Times (but explained I’d pitched The Sunday Times but hadn’t heard back). Next thing I knew one of the editors called me to say they’d love to commission me, and explained some of the points they’d like me to include (for example, my emotions, if I'd ever felt uneasy with him, and so on). She made it clear that it had be filed that day because other nationals would be following it up with other interviews or first-person pieces by other women similarly affected by this story. It meant putting aside the work I had on, and having to file by 4pm (though because of an appointment, I filed much earlier). It’s interesting how much you can do when under pressure (as I know from working on news desks) and by about 2pm (between doing some emails, lunch, and other tasks) I sent it over, and soon enough received emails back from the two editors involved (who I’d never worked with before), commenting on how much they loved the piece. First-person pieces are out of my comfort zone so this was heartening to hear. And because the piece was so personal, they paid me more than the usual rate, so that was a bonus (*starts knocking out all the personal pieces to boost the usual measly journalism rate).

The piece was published online later that night. One of the editors had warned me about comments, saying if I felt uncomfortable, they could turn them off. The comments were wild, with lots of victim blaming (I haven’t looked again so perhaps they might have been edited or taken down). But keyboard warriors said that I was gullible. That I’ve made it about me. That perhaps working in a box would lead to people to do this. I’m absolutely fine but I can understand why some journalists shy away from writing personal first-person pieces. It was out of my comfort zone but it felt important to speak about.

And I’m glad I did because since it was published, I’ve received numerous emails and DMs from fellow female clients, equally bewildered and left feeling like it’s dented our ability to trust men. Many of us are trying to encourage the police to find out if Torben recorded us, though it doesn’t look like the police have a shred of interest. 

If you’re looking to land an opinion piece for you or your client, one of the most important points to understand is that time is of the essence. Like the editor explained to me, she needed it filing that day so it could be in the next day’s paper (and online later that night). Write a snappy subject line/headline that will catch the editor’s attention; one you could imagine that title using. My pitch included why I should be the person to write it (longstanding client of over 10 years), and the emotions of how I was feeling after finding out he was a pervert, and a link to the story in case they hadn’t seen it. What would have helped the pitch is that the story featured in a lot of online titles that afternoon and then in the physical papers that day, so they might have already seen it when trawling the papers looking for stories (which is what I do when I’m radio producing….eg, how can we cover the story/move the story on?). 

Anyhow, here’s the print and online piece: 

The story of a fake case study

I realise I'm behind the times with this, but I wanted to hone in on a recent Telegraph story involving a fake case study. 

You might have already read about how the Telegraph were forced to pull the article and post an apology. Or you might have heard it being dissected on the Prospect magazine podcast with Alan Rusbridger and Lionel Barber. 

Either way, the story looked at how a banker and his wife on a joint salary of £345,000 were forced to reduce their holidays (five) and switch from shopping at Waitrose to Sainsbury’s as a result of Labour’s VAT policy on school fees. 

Later, the story was questioned on Bluesky by journalist Ian Fraser, with Fraser noting that the images accompanying the piece were not of investment banker Al Moy, 38, and wife Alexandra, but actually stock images from 13 years ago. And then actually, using his journalistic nous, he searched high and low for evidence that these two people exist, and found zilch.

I don’t want to knock the freelance journalist involved. Apparently, she was handed the case study by the Telegraph and told to interview Al and write up the piece. It seems like a phone interview did take place. Yes, the names of the children – Ali, Harry and Barry – might rhyme and be unexpected, but honestly, would you question or ask the the case study to provide evidence of their children’s names? No. And the freelance journalist wasn't involved with the pictures, apparently.

Following the suspicions raised online, the article was pulled.

A spokesperson for Telegraph Media Group said: “On May 25 we published an online article ‘We earn £345k, but soaring private school fees mean we can’t go on five holidays’ which included stock photographs and not, as the article indicated, images of the family referred to in the article. In addition, we have not been able to verify the details published.

“There has been public speculation the story was created using Artificial Intelligence; this is not the case. We apologise to our readers for these errors which should not have occurred.”

Press Gazette said it understands the case study was set up by a PR working for financial planning firm Saltus, which was referenced in the article. The journalist has received a lot of stick. She’s a well-established successful writer who has been working for the newspaper for a long time. 

But what has clearly happened is that a PR has sold in a story with a fake case study so the company could be highlighted in the press. Was this a junior PR under immense pressure? I have no idea. But it certainly isn’t a positive outcome for the PR or financial company incolved. I’ve written before about dubious case studies who seem to say yes to every press request, when there appears to be an abundance of bending of the truth. But least they exist (though I'd prefer they didn't lie. And I do avoid these people). 

But what can we learn from this? I don’t think this is common practice in the industry, though I think it does happen more than we think. It's an embarrassment for the PR agency and financial company involved and many journalists will now avoid both. The attempt to gain positive PR has led to a PR disaster, and distrust. There’s lessons to be had from everyone involved. Many case studies come from PRs and no doubt more questions need to be asked, and we certainly can’t just accept them at face value. While the journalist involved has shouldered a lot of the burden, this should also fall at the Telegraph’s feet. Where was the subeditor? Why didn’t the editor of the section raise questions? Is it down to cost-cutting or just one piece that has fallen through the cracks on a busy day? One thing is for certain, as teams are cut, it widens the gap for more errors. And with that, more mistrust of the media.

Behind the scenes of a story on Mexico’s "disappeared"

Trigger warning: the first part of this blog contains details of kidnappings, murder and mass graves.

Behind the scenes of any story are boundless interviews, checks and edits. But there’s also hours of research and actually getting the story off the ground.

I visited Jalisco, the Mexican state with the highest record - over 15,000 - of missing people, last week after a story I had been quietly working on for the last six months was finally given the green light by the Jalisco Search Commission just two days prior. 

The email conversation started earlier in the year. After discovering a story I wanted to investigate in western Mexico involving mass graves, technology, the cartel, and search groups led by mothers of the disappeared, there had been numerous calls, WhatsApp messages, and emails with a contact to try and make it happen. We penned in May/June for a visit but then weeks before I was told there were political issues and it was likely the story might not come off. After investing so much time and energy, it was obviously frustrating but I encouraged my source to keep plugging away, and to see if there were any other solutions if we couldn’t do the story exactly how we initially wanted to. Fortunately, at the last moment I received a voice note: the story was back on. Cue spending a Saturday night researching, and booking buses and hotels for the Monday. (And lining up another piece for while I was in town).

After a 10-hour journey, the next day was spent with a team of about eight people, discovering the different approaches by Jalisco’s search commission to find those who have forcibly disappeared by the cartel, crime groups who snatch young people from their houses and create fake job ads to lure people into prostitution, forced labour, and eventually, to their deaths (many will end up killed and buried in graves). 

I spent an hour interviewing one mother whose son was forcibly taken from his house in 2019. Months later his body parts were found in different graves. She was handed 13 of his body parts in a bag. Five years later she has no idea what happened to him during the time he was missing, or why he was taken. 

I also visited experimental sites, one of which was located 200 metres away from a mass grave, and interviewed several other people connected to the searches.

As I write this, I don’t have a commission. 

I pitched one national earlier in the year but they didn’t want to be involved due to the safety risks. The week before I left, as we were in limbo as to whether the story would come off, I pitched an editor of another national but whose remit it doesn’t exactly fall under, but he’s a good contact. I’m waiting to find out if it might come off. 

All in all it involved hours of phone calls, emails, and voice notes even before I set off to Jalisco. About 20 hours of travel. A day (9.30am-6pm) of interviews, presentations and site visits, and then there’ll be hours and hours of pulling it all together into a story. And perhaps another interview or two. And then more edits, fact checks, and edits. You don’t want to know what kind of below minimum wage fee that'll amount to. Of course, it’s not about the money (though I do believe we should be paid more fairly because as you can see, it's not sustainable at all), but I wanted to share what’s involved in a story like this, because like anything, when we see the final product, you don’t see everything that’s gone into it beforehand. But this is just one story from me. This is nothing compared to the output of freelancers who work tirelessly (and often, risk their lives) spending countless hours on very important stories, for tiny sums of money. 

Another reminder to invest/spend money on journalism. 🖊️

AI-generated search overviews are another kick in the teeth for the industry

My heart breaks reading about the redundancies at Business Insider.

As many of you will have seen, the financial news outlet said it was struggling with falling traffic amid the increasing use of AI-generated search overviews.

“We’re at the start of a major shift in how people find and consume information, which is driving ongoing volatility in traffic and distribution for all publishers,” chief executive Barbara Peng wrote in a memo. “The impact on our industry has been profound, with many publications shuttering in recent years.”

Peng added that 70% of the news site’s business “has some degree of traffic sensitivity". 

"We must be structured to endure extreme traffic drops outside of our control,” she wrote, “so we’re reducing our overall company to a size where we can absorb that volatility.”

How will other publishers react to a drop in traffic? Fewer eyeballs ultimately leads to a slump in online advertising revenues, more redundancies amongst already trimmed down teams, and worse still, titles going under. It's another threat to the publishing business. 

There's hardly a day goes by when I'm not worried about the state of journalism or pondering my own future. I love my job, and I want to continue as a journalist but it's not sustainable. I've diversified to expand into media consultancy, workshops, power hours, courses, webinars, a journalist content network, and I rent out my flat when I'm not there, but it's still HARD. My income is falling. Publishers are cutting back, budgets diminishing, and freelancers are fighting for the small amount of work left. I think people would be shocked by what a freelance journalist earns (the average is about £27,000 a year). We haven't entered journalism for the high income; we just want financial security.

I don't know what the answer is. I don't want to exit the industry. I still get a kick out of seeing my name in print, or on the homepage of a national, of talking to people for a living, and writing stories. I'm looking into other alternative income streams, but my heart is in journalism, even if it's feeling even more demoralising as the years pass by.

Avoid sending AI content to journalists

I’m happy ensconced in Roma in Mexico City, where I have finally managed to organise access to the city’s bike rental scheme (think London’s so-canned Boris Bikes, but at half the price for an annual pass) after it doesn’t let people use international cards (cue asking a kind new Mexican friend for help). Anyhow, I’m thrilled I can now pedal around the city on two wheels.

In journalism-related news, I wanted to throw a spotlight on AI. You may or may not have seen my recent BBC article on ‘The people refusing to use AI’, which kind of went a bit crazy. One of the main case studies, Sabine Zetteler, and I, received emails from people around the world. It clearly resonated with people. I even had a teenager from the US emailing me about a study she’d done across her school on pupil’s views on AI.

As a journalist, nothing gives me more pleasure than people feeling so passionate about an article you’ve written, that they’ve felt compelled to get in touch. Well, maybe tacos and cycling. It led to the article being picked up by other titles worldwide, and also by my beloved Radio 5 Live. Now, I’m stop naval gazing, but it brings me onto the subject of people using AI to generate comment and copy for magazines/newspapers.

Honestly, as someone said in my article, we need to make sure we’re not outsourcing our ability to think. To problem solve. To have our own thoughts. Who wants to read a magazine, newspaper and it’s all just regurgitated content from the internet pulled together by ChatGPT? Is this the world we want? Ethics and future concerns over our brain cells just plummeting aside, I can assure you that journalists are already receiving such waddle and are calling it out. And many are starting to adjust their editorial guidelines to state that they don’t want to receive such content:

Katie McQuater, head of editorial at Research Live, posted on LinkedIn to say the organisation had made a brief amendment to its editorial guidelines:

“Research Live does not publish editorial content generated by artificial intelligence. If we suspect editorial content has been directly generated using AI, it will not be published.'

We want YOUR thoughts and ideas, not those generated by LLMs.

It shouldn't need to be said, but in the space we cover, accuracy is critical - plus, if we're publishing an opinion piece, we want YOUR opinion, not machine-generated 'content' formed from someone else's.”

Many journalists can tell if an email, comment, opinion piece, has been spat out by AI. It doesn’t sound human. Also, we want your authentic voice. We want comment that is accurate, and not using potentially false information regurgitated by LLM.

In response to Katy’s post, John McCarthy, opinion editor at The Drum, said: “Cards on the table. I'm getting a lot of opinion in that seems to have been written manually then gets a final AI edit pass from the writer or PR by the looks of things. I can forgive on tighter deadlines. I'd rather the odd typo than the GPT edit job but c'est la vie. Ultimately, we can tell a mile off whether something has any substance whatsoever in it or not really easily. Suppose it's much easier to tell with opinion when 800 words come back without stating a single opinion. Even when people prompt it to be punchy, all I get is brand social tone cringe. Sparkly nothing.” He later added: “To be honest, it's getting tiring. I need to be less forgiving on them.” Of course, us journalists know that it’s not always the CEO who has provided comment. That perhaps a PR has written it, or they’ve said it and a PR has edited it. At least then there  is a human involved writing good copy. Stick to that. Stick to someone who has good writing skills, rather than outsourcing to a machine. It could mean the difference between a journalist never using you or your agency again. Is it worth it?

Pitching tips following a recent call-out

Hope you're all well. After that whirlwind banger of an illness, I’ve emerged the other side and am writing this from the Oaxaca coast, where I’m staying in a tipi with a group of other travellers. From Puerto Escondido I took a taxi > collectivo > pick-up truck > boat > pick-up truck to finally arrive here but four hours later, I’ve emerged at a tranquil paradise. Phew. It’s probably one of my best finds (thanks to the recommendation of Dutch woman I travelled with for 10 days in Mexico and Belize). 

ANYHOW. Thanks for the messages. 

The other week I put a call-out on LinkedIn asking for strong pitches. This was the post:

"I'm open to strong tech-for-good feature pitches dropping in my inbox.

Note: Must be feature pitches (rather than one company doing something).
Must be fresh, and not covered by the BBC before.
Very keen on solutions-focused and/or sustainability stories.

To understand more about what I'm after, here's some stories I've previously written for the section:

The festivals searching for greener ways to rock
'We are creating new crops five-times faster'
Disasters spur investment in flood and fire risk tech
How much will AI help in the next pandemic?

You can start by DM'ing me on here."

Within an hour or so I updated the post to say: "Thank you for all the pitches so far. But what I've noticed is that people are firing me pitches without having read/understood the below criteria. Please send FRESH feature ideas. Please CHECK it's not been featured before. I'm receiving pitches which - after my own online search - I can see have been covered before. Thank you."

What was positive was I received A LOT OF messages. 

But what was disappointing was that people just simply didn’t read (or chose to ignore) what I'd actually requested. 

I received so many pitches that: 

• Weren’t focused on tech at all

• Were just focused on one company

• Were subjects that the BBC had already covered in detail – there was nothing new, or fresh. And when I’d mention this in the feedback, people just responded saying their organisation hadn’t been featured before.

• Ideas came through that I was sure I had seen or would have been featured on the BBC and then sure enough when I researched, they had. 

And people chased far too quickly (for example, the same day, a day later). 

I’m going to say about 75 pitches came through, three of which I was able to take through to my editor. 

I ended up spending a lot of time explaining what I needed/what was wrong with the pitch. And then I would receive further pitches, which again hadn't been well targeted.

My recommendations going forward are really simple - and I know a lot of you obviously know this already - but overall this would have saved me a lot of time:

Please read what the journalist is looking for. If it says TECH stories, then you know, just send tech stories.

If it says feature/trends-led stories, don’t be sending a press release, or information just about your company.

Please check if the story has been covered before. And if it has, find a new angle. I know it's hard work (and time-consuming) but hey, it's also something I have to do for a living. I can't be sending my editors ideas that they've already covered before. 

Many people just told me to watch a video or click on a release or report. This is so off-putting. If you can’t be bothered to write a succinct pitch or you can’t explain it in your own words, then you need to work on that before you ever pitch to a journalist.

Don’t chase so quickly. That's adding to our already crazy inboxes. 

And by the way, I did appreciate the few strong pitches by the people who read the brief. 

If you'd like more tips and examples of strong pitches, I'm running my popular Lessons from a Journalist: How to Secure Media Coverage workshop in London on August 21, in Mexico City on May 20, and also online on May 8 and July 30.

Do you think this is a conflict of interest?

Recently a PR, who I won't be naming, contacted me asking if I would be interested in working with them in a paid capacity to help generate story ideas across their client base and then pitching/writing those stories as a journalist.

I thanked them for the opportunity but said I couldn't be paid by a PR agency/company to work on stories that I would then be writing about for a newspaper or magazine. I said that it would be a conflict of interest. If we have journalists being paid by both the company featured and the newspaper/magazine, then that crosses boundaries. I’m sure we all want an independent unbiased press, not one where actually the journalist has been paid by one of the companies to feature them in the press.

They said I was the first freelancer to decline it on this basis. And although the extra income would be wonderful right now, I stood my ground as it didn’t sit well with me.

Bemused that some freelance journalists were agreeing to this way of working, I checked in with a couple of my key editors to find out their views.

This is what one of my editors at the nationals said:

"It would be unethical. And I couldn’t commission you to write a feature including a company that was paying you to do its PR."

Another agreed:

“Short answer - yes, I totally agree with you - I think that would be unethical, and that as an editor, I would automatically assume a freelancer wouldn't be being paid by the companies they are mentioning.”

So, please, by all means work with a freelance journalist by brainstorming ideas (little plug here for my content network of talented hacks and I who can help you here). But then don’t ask them to pitch and write a story on the same company to a title (and any freelance journalists reading this, please don't also do this). Imagine reading an article and then finding out the journalist was being paid to feature said company. Public trust in journalism is already waning. Let's make sure the media industry still has some integrity left.

One way to build stronger relationships with journalists (and increase your chances of press coverage)

Last year I filed a piece for a national newspaper but unfortunately weeks later the whole section was pulled without notice. Fortunately (or rightly so, even) I was still paid and was given permission to pitch the piece to other outlets. I pitched Wired but to no avail (they never responded - not hearing back also very much happens to journalists). 

Last month I pitched the piece to a very respectable trade magazine and I secured a commission with them (I’ll publish it when it goes live as I don’t wish to jinx it). It involves further interviews and a different angle but it was subject I’d already worked on and am keen to see it through.

It made me realise that there’s a place here for PRs to be super helpful and suggest ways freelance journalists can maximise their work. For example, in this case, perhaps once of the PRs I had told I wouldn’t be able to place it with the national could have said: “Actually, if you’re looking for other titles to place this, I can suggest trying the Wired features editor, trade magazine X which has a new vertical and is always looking for feature ideas, or there’s a Q&A in this tech magazine that would fit the bill.”

This particular subject is the PR’s stronghold. They'll be working hours every weeks trying to secure press coverage across national to trade press. They'll be (or should be) inhaling all the potential media covering the subject, be aware of the feature editors commissioning such stories, and have the knowledge to know where a piece could work, and how it could be changed to fit a particular title’s style. As a freelance journalist, I know I don’t do this enough, but then pieces rarely fall through. BUT, there’s room here for after a national piece has been published, for example, for the PR with all their knowledge and contacts to suggest how the freelance journalist they've just worked with could rework it for a particular trade or consumer title and also share their contacts. A win for the PR for potentially securing two or more pieces of coverage, and a win for the journalist in landing more commissions and money. And just a fantastic way to build relationships. 

Times are very difficult very now and I will certainly be once again banging on about just how tough it is as a freelance journalist, but by working together (and building relationships) there’s ways to make things a little bit easier for all parties.

Jeff Bezos gags The Washington Post’s opinion section

Established in 1877, The Washington Post is (or was) seen as one of the most well-regarded newspapers in the US.

However, last week its owner made a shocking announcement that angered its readers so much that more than 75,000 of its digital subscribers cancelled their subscriptions. I was one of them.

Amazon billionaire Jezz Bezos bought The Washington Post in 2013. You can imagine the concern amongst staff and readers when that was announced but Bezos was known to have left the editors pretty much to their own devices, reportedly only minimally involved every couple of weeks.

However, his relative hands-off approach shifted dramatically last year when Bezos stopped The Washington Post from endorsing Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. It was the first time since the 1980s that the newspaper didn’t endorse a presidential candidate. Of course, the move indicated Bezos wanted to be in favour with Trump. According to NPR, between then and Election Day, more than 300,000 subscribers – some 12% of its digital subscribers - cancelled their subscription.

Not concerned with the threat of losing more, the billionaire made an even more shocking decision last week, though in line with recent moves by billionaires Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg to cosy up to Trump.

Last Wednesday Bezos revealed that he would radically transform the paper's opinion pages so that opinions that support and defend “personal liberties” and “free markets” would be welcome, and other viewpoints would be "left to be published by others”.

"We'll cover other topics too of course," Bezos wrote in a note to staffers that he posted publicly X, "but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others".

The decision clearly shows he doesn’t want his newspaper to criticise the Trump administration, which he has given $1 million to since October. Bezos’s Amazon and his space company Blue Origin has contracts with the federal government worth billions of dollars annually.

The move led to the immediate resignation of opinion editor David Shipley. According to NPR, he tried to persuade Bezos to drop the plans, according to a person with direct knowledge.

The decision also led to criticism from associate editor David Maraniss and former executive editor Marty Baron. Baron called the move "craven" and told Zeteo News that Bezos, whom he praised extensively in his 2023 memoir, was "basically fearful" of President Trump.

Marty Baron, the regarded former editor of the Washington Post, said in an interview with the Guardian that Jeff Bezos's announcement that the newspaper’s opinion section would narrow its editorial focus was a “betrayal of the very idea of free expression” that had left him “appalled”.

In an interview with the Guardian, Baron also said: “I don’t think that [Bezos] wants an editorial page that’s regularly going after Donald Trump.” 

Bezos’s announcement was met with criticism and resulted in the departure of the newspaper’s opinions editor, David Shipley. Baron, who was executive editor of the Washington Post from 2012 until 2021 and is one of the most esteemed figures in American journalism, blasted Bezos’s decision.

What an actual horror show for journalism and free speech. I can only imagine the journalists at the Washington Post will be bearing it all through gritted teeth.

For gawd's sake...check a journalist's details

I’m writing this from Boca De Agua in Bacalar in Yucatan, Mexico. This jungle retreat is sustainable luxe (my room is about $750 a night) with guesting stay high up in treehouses with pools. As yet another freelance journalist with money woes, it is (of course), out of my budget but luckily it's a work gig so I have the opportunity to see how the other half live. And I'm probably the first person to walk through the doors with a dusty old backpack. After almost a month in Mexico, I'm finally bidding adios for a short while from tomorrow as I travel through Belize. Any tips welcome.

The latest Buzzstream State of Digital PR report is out and I thought it was interesting to see how many (61%) PRs said the main challenge in building their media lists was information was outdated or incorrect. I know journalists move around but if these media list companies are charging thousands, I don't know why they can't keep them up to date. The next question asked if a PR verifies a journalist’s fit by looking at their recent articles almost a third (31%) said sometimes, while when the same question was asked about their bio, 36% said they only did it sometimes. 

Unless I know for certain the Money editor I want to pitch at the Independent is in fact the Money editor, then I always need to verify details. I do this by visiting the website they work at. If this isn't clear, I also check out social media profiles. I know the report indicates that many PRs are indeed doing a thorough job and checking details and making sure their pitches reach the right person, there are many out there that are just winging it (I can’t tell you how many column pitches I’ve received and generally how many irrelevant emails land in my inbox). Like us journalists, we need to check the right in-house editor's details to make sure we our story ideas land correctly. Not doing so can lead to so many emails coming through that are irrelevant and are a waste of everyone’s time. More information on the report here.

When you're grateful for the excellent PRs and press officers

I’m writing this from Merida, a pastel-hued city where I’ve been firmly ensconced for the past six days. Travelling is bringing me so much joy. I’ve relaxed on the idyllic and car-free island of Holbox, stayed with an arty Mexican family in Valladolid who surprised me a vegan chocolate cake on my birthday (which also involved having a peaceful solo 30-minute rotation of a cenote, checking into Casa Olivia in Merida and having a two-person deep tissue massage (woe my back from the 80-litre backpack), and dinner in a hip Mexican restaurant with a Chinese former journalist who now resides in Merida….all in all, a very bueno day), and over oversized margaritas in one of the oldest cantinas with local A told me that he and his family moved here as they wanted a safe sanctuary as kidnappings sadly became the norm in their home town in northern Mexico.

While I’m having this experience, I am also working. I’m juggling travel writing alongside my usual journalism and my media consultancy services, bringing together PRs for brainstorming sessions with journalists. And, on top of that, exploring. No requests for sympathy, of course. It’s a lot but it’s my decision. I can’t afford not to work.

I’ve been working alongside some press officers recently and although I work with many PRs and press officers that are absolutely fantastic, sometimes the experience just makes me shake my head. There’s often a lot of chasing from my side, and a total lack of effort and engagement from theirs. People doing the bare minimum: putting up just a spokesperson for a national interview and then when pushed for the CEO saying they can possibly arrange the following week. This is after asking for this initial request six weeks ago. There’s so much potential to go beyond, and dig deeper to help bring a story to life. I don’t know what their workflow is like on the other end, although I understand I am one of many journalists they’ll be in touch with. But it feels like such a contrast to when you work with excellent PRs and press officers who do everything to make a story happen: who set up the interview pronto, who you don’t have to chase, who send you additional useful information.

Although some of them I still need to work with because of the lack of companies in that space and because we’re nearly at the finishing line, you know you’ll remember the poor communications and will no doubt avoid in the future.

The controversy surrounding the sale of the UK's oldest Sunday newspaper

There's strife over at the Guardian and Observer as journalists at the newspapers plan to strike for 48 hours over plans to offload the Observer to Tortoise. 

It’s the first industrial action by staff at the titles in decades, indicating just how much staff are fiercely against the move. Some 93% of Guardian and Observer journalists voted in favour of strike action in protest at the deal last week.

The strikes are set to take place on December 4 and 5. 

Union members passed a motion stating that selling the 233 year-old Sunday newspaper to Tortoise would be a “betrayal” of the Scott Trust’s commitment to the Observer. The Trust is the ultimate owner of Guardian Media Group.

The Guardian hasn't been happy at those speaking out about the potential sale. Press Gazette reports that Guardian and Observer writer Carole Cadwalladr was contacted by management after appearing on the Media Confidential podcast hosted by former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger earlier this month. She has also spoken out on this X thread. Press Gazette said it "understands she has been accused of disparaging colleagues and the company and of making inaccurate statements. Cadwalladr said she denies disparaging anyone and said no detail has been given about alleged inaccuracies."

At the helm of Tortoise is James Harding, former editor of the Times and former director of BBC News. He has recently been on a media crusade to help the sale go through. Though its yet to make a profit, Harding has said Tortoise will pump £20m into the Observer and plans to continue to publish the Observer on a Sunday and build the Observer’s digital presence, combining with Tortoise’s podcasts, newsletters and live events. 

A Guardian spokesperson said that it did “not believe a strike is the best course of action” and that its chief aim was to ensure that both the Guardian and Observer “thrive in a challenging media environment”

Friends of mine at the paper told me that they will be joining the strike next week.

Some Observer freelancers have already started jumping ship. Observer restaurant critic Jay Rayner is to join the Financial Times after 25 years reviewing restaurants for the Observer. (And good news for fans of restaurant critic Marina O’Loughlin - she has joined the FT as a columnist.)

Though at least Tortoise has created some stellar journalism such as Sweet Bobby (which has turned into a Netflix show), it feels like a risky move that will put both the Observer and its journalists at risk. Watch this space.

Never ask a journalist to do this...

For those of you who haven't read about the absolute communications car crash that took the tech and PR world by storm last week (ok, a dose of hyperbole there), let me fill you in. 

Following a tense exchange during a podcast interview between Sasan Goodarzi, chief executive of Intuit, which owns TurboTax, and editor-in-chief of The Verge and host of the Decoder podcast Nilay Patel, Patel received a note from Rick Heineman, the chief communications officer at Intuit, calling the line of questioning and his tone “inappropriate,” “egregious,” and “disappointing” and demanded that they delete that entire section of the recording. Yes, really. 

Patel added: “I mean, literally — he wrote a long email that ended with “at the very least the end portion of your interview should be deleted"."

Patel then explained that The Verge has abides by journalistic ethics and doesn't remove content or make changes. 

You'd think Heineman might have then just left it. But no. He responded by asking that they “delete that which takes away from the conversation,” which he defined as “raised voices” or us “speaking over each other,” so that “listeners understand your question and the answer Sasan gave".

Instead, Patel wrote a separate article about the request and focused on that segment of the interview. 

Now, I’m assuming Goodarzi said to his PR, something along the lines of “Do whatever you can to remove that part of the podcast”. The PR might have tried his best to tell his boss this would be the wrong line of approach, that journalists don’t do this. But the PR should have stood his ground. 

But as a result of this exchange — which probably wouldn’t have gained that much traction outside of The Verge, it’s led to a separate article by The Verge and further coverage on Inuit’s response on other websites, plus traction on social media. It’s embarrassing for Inuit, Sassan and Heineman. 

There’s an extra point to be made here about the comms person perhaps not briefing the CEO correctly so they were ill prepared for that line of questioning. Hands up, I don’t know Inuit that well, but it appears that these questions should have been expected. 

I’m often asked by people (sometimes even PRs, though mainly, but not all the time, they're based out of the UK) to see if they can see the article before it goes live. I’ve had this conversation several times in the past week, in fact. I talk about this in my workshops, but no, unless it is a sensitive subject, such as an interview with a domestic abuse survivor, I don’t allow anyone else to see part/all of the article, check it and amend it before it goes live – apart from the publisher. If we want independent and unbiased journalism, then we certainly don’t want other people controlling and greenlighting the content. 

Of course, if it’s factually incorrect, politely tell us and we’ll change it.

The move towards churnalism

It was recently reported that Birmingham Live editor Graeme Brown last month emailed journalists on his team to say that they should file at least eight stories per day unless they were newsgathering out of the office.  

“We need to make more of shifts where people are not going out as drivers of volume," said Brown, as first quoted by Hold The Front Page. "In practice, if you’re on a general shift and you’re not on a job, it should be at least eight stories a shift.” 

Urgh. I can imagine the intense pressure these journalists are under already and then to be told they need to file eight stories a day.  

I know local, like national, publishers are struggling but insisting on such a number of stories just creates even more churnalism; if you want good quality local journalism, then you can’t insist journalists knock out eight stories a day.

There's plenty of important stories that don’t have to involve stepping outside the office, but instead battering the phones and say, calling the emergency services to follow up on as story, chasing leads, and conducting interviews. This can't be achieved if journalists are forced to write eight stories a day. I can just imagine the burn out, exhaustion and low levels of job satisfaction these journalists are living with when it's all about volume, and not quality. 

When the story broke, journalist Olivia Devereux-Evans commented on X: “As someone who has done this… a 7-3pm shift means writing at least a story an hour, sometimes more. Sometimes I didn’t take a proper lunch break as I felt pressure to hit 8 stories and was consistently stressed about page views…” 

Similarly Louis Staples said: “As someone who used to work in clickbait content farming: this puts reporters at professional and personal risk. It burns them out and leads to mistakes and a loss confidence, not to mention questionable ethical judgements in pursuit of traffic. End this model!”

Maybe instead they should focus on creating useable websites that doesn't bring up annoying pop-ups every time you try to read an article.

Slow right down

I wanted to chat this week about the speed of talking in interviews. When a journalist is interviewing you/your client, of course it might feel a/ super exciting and b/ like you want to use the opportunity to reel off everything about the subject you're speaking on so you don't miss anything out.

But this can prove to be a bit of a headache for the journalist.

For my interviews, and for many of my fellow journalists, we’re often interviewing over the phone, or perhaps using Teams or Zoom, and most certainly with our earphones in and tapping away making notes on own computers or in a notebook (unless it’s a live interview, of course). What often happens is the interviewee speaks so quickly it’s difficult to type/write up what they’re saying and secondly, it’s hard to keep up and digest what they’re saying when they’re speaking at 50 mph, especially if it's on a subject we're not used to. Also, what often happens is people speak continuously, covering and switching between several points at once.

So, while the journalist will often ask for the interviewee to slow down, or repeat a point, I would advise anyone to speak slower and more concisely than you usually would. Pause. Breathe. Let the point sink in. Don’t rush to bring in lots of different points all at once or you could lose the journalist or the viewer/listener. 

Of course, there’s AI translation tools we could all use to make our lives easier but at the moment, most journalists are not using these on a daily basis when interviewing someone.

All hail the freelancer fighters

There’s been some good news over the past month with both the Guardian and BBC upping their freelancer rates. I’ll share what these are as I expect many people not be familiar with what kind of rates freelancers receive.

Firstly, the Guardian has increased its rates for casuals and freelancers by 2.5%. This no doubt took a lot of grafting from freelancers such as Donna Ferguson and the NUJ staff reps who push for stronger rates for us freelancers, who aren’t often given as much thought as staffers. It means lineage rates will rise to 37p a word across the Guardian, and casual shifts will increase to £215 a day this year. Meanwhile the BBC has increased its article feature rate to £369.60. 

I wish these were larger amounts but I'm thankful for the small wins and the people who have campaigned for such increases.

Cut out the jargon

Whether it's in your/your client's team, company, or even industry, there'll no doubt be certain terms thrown around that mean something to you all but to anyone outside of this world, it's meaningless. This was the case for me during a recent interview I held with a senior person at a company for an article for the nationals. Throughout the interview they used terms that no-one outside of their team or industry would know, prompting me to constantly stop and ask what those terms meant. There was one word that was being said through the interview that meant something most of us would understand to mean but when I asked a question at the end of the interview about the use of X, she said actually, that word wasn’t what was meant in the Oxford Dictionary. It meant something very different. It was only because I asked a particular question at the end that I then knew that. Otherwise the piece would have included it referring to its original meaning, not the one used by the company.

Whether you are sending over comments, writing a press release, or speaking to a journalist, remember to cut out the jargon and use plain English. Or, if when you are prepping your client, remind them. Also remind them not to sound like they're giving a sales pitch to a client with lines that don’t really say or mean anything, rather than answering the questions.

For example:

ME: How do you plan to use AI in the future?

THEM: “We want to explore all elements of AI to help our customers so we can continue being the leading technology provider in our field - our mission is to be the best provider for all of our clients.”

Yes, sometimes it really is like interviewing a politician.

Drop me a line if you’d like more information or recommendations about media training.