A reminder to add this to your emails to journalists
I’ve mentioned this before but thought I'd flag it up again seeing as though it's something I see regularly happening in my inbox. Whether you’re pitching a journalist or responding to a ResponseSource, please for the love of god include a description of the company. Such a simple tip but I don’t know who say Blue Velvet is (perhaps red velvet cakes’ unpopular sibling) or what May Solutions do unless you tell me. If we’re receiving scores of emails, you don’t want a journalist to delete your email or move onto the next as you haven’t thrown in a description of what the company actually does. It may sound like a tech company and we’ve already got two tech companies featuring in the piece so we move onto the next email, or there’s eight other responses and we’ll be more interested in the ones we don’t have to work out ourselves (I appreciate this might take all of six seconds for us to do but when time is of the essence, it could be the difference between appearing in the press or not).
Just by coincidence, I was up in Salford recently when my second-ever radio package aired on BBC World Service. It was lovely to be in the office and hear positive words from my colleagues as my piece on the Red Light District’s potential move to the south of the city saw (or rather, heard) me visit the infamous Amsterdam area to interview businesses such as Condomerie (which, as the name implies, sells condoms including a glow-in-the-dark one which the owner couldn't resist throwing in my bag as I left), residents, and a former sex worker-turned-activist on their views. It’s a contentious issue and the move to a separate erotic centre will continue to be fiercely fought.
Now working as a radio producer, it’s interesting to learn what goes into creating radio. This is hours of work condensed into about four minutes. Here’s the link. It runs at about 17 minutes. While up in Manchester I also recorded links in the studio (pictured) for a couple of my upcoming BBC World Service packages.