Arts PR Conference

Friday 20 January 2012 Notes from Meet the features journalists session

10:15 .11:30 Meet the FEATURES journalists An in-depth, well placed feature can do wonders for your profile and visitors, but where to start and how to make it happen? A selection of features journalists talk about lead times, content and exclusivity and answer your questions about how to secure that warm glow inducing double page spread.

Speakers Biographys
Rebecca Nicholson, Producer, BBC Radio 4 Front Row Rebecca Nicholson joined the BBC as a graduate trainee and has been producing radio programmes rather longer than she likes to admit. The majority of them have been arts-based, including live and pre-recorded magazines and features, quizzes and music shows for most of the BBCs national networks, and the World Service, and LBC. For the past eight years shes been one of the team of producers on Front Row, Radio 4s daily live arts and entertainment magazine. Rebecca.nicholson@bbc.co.uk

Jane Wright, Editor, Ink Publications Glaswegian journalist Jane Wright began her career in educational and childrens publishing at Scholastic before moving into newspapers and magazines. She has worked for The Herald, Scotland on Sunday, the Scottish Daily Mail and was part of the original team on the Sunday Herald, the multi-award-winning Glasgow-based broadsheet launched by Andrew Jaspan in 1999. She began as production editor, soon became deputy editor and then edited the magazine for seven years until she left to go travelling in 2007. Following her travels she freelanced in Glasgow for two years for several publications including the Spectator, The Age (Melbourne), Time Out Hong Kong and the Herald before launching Metropolitan, Eurostars first magazine in a decade for Ink Publishing in May 2010. In November 2011 she won Launch of the Year at the British Society of Magazine Editors. As of January 2012 she is now editor of Brussels Airlines magazine Bthere with a planned relaunch for June 2012. jane.wright@ink-global.com

Liz Anderson, Arts Editor, The Spectator Liz Anderson has been at The Spectator magazine for more than 20 years, the past 16 as arts editor. Before that she worked for the Sunday Times, the Daily Telegraph and other magazines. liz@spectator.co.uk Claire Saul, Freelance journalist Claire Sauls career moved from brand marketing to freelance journalism twelve years ago. Since then she has written for a variety of magazines on broad-ranging subjects, primarily in the adult and youth magazine marketing. This diversity is illustrated by her current regular titles My Weekly, Dance Today, regional lifestyle glossy Splashlight and childens title Animals and You. She also writes for the time and travel sections of family and

parenting website MyFamilyClub. Past and future publications featuring Claires work include Heritage, Choice, Best of British and Discover Britain. claire.saul@words.uk.net / 0118 978 3871.

Speakers notes:
Rebecca Nicholson
FRONT ROW: Weekdays, 7.15pm . Arts magazine programme covering books, film, music performance, visual art, media Listeners: average age of Radio 4 is 55, average age of Front Row is 53 1.41 million listeners a programme

AUDIENCE

weekly reach stereotype of middle aged, middle class, living in the south, knowledgeable, want to be informed with a range of interests, are news-hungry and prepared to travel. This profile and these factors inform the programme.

HOW WE COVER

interviews / reviews / written columns / features / discussions

NOT FORGETTING: FR is a magazine also part of a Network A Speech Network need good mix of items need to fit in with rest of R4s day - need talking points / not a listings-service does the item have national interest for a non-specialist listener? can it sustain an interview? (What is it? Then what is the 2
nd

THEREFORE

ques? 3 ? 4 ??)

rd

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take home factor: audio-clips / images for website / cd or dvd Think how the programme fit together. email first follow up later with phone call

GENERAL CONTACT

TIMING

major events: as far ahead as possible other matters: 3 or 4 weeks ahead also looking for on-the-day news stories

HOW WE DECIDE (content) receive vast numbers of press-releases:some not appropriate: Charity benefits / Zoo-funding / arts-symposium one-off events tricky ditto announcements of forthcoming seasons / picture-stories

HOW WE DECIDE (practicalities) Presenter-led format: we have to manage their workload

- if they travel to other side of the country, weve lost them for the day

Metropolitan-bias: aware of problem and do try to avoid it - tricky balancing act

TWO FINAL POINTS

Lots of R4 shows have arts-based items - but a guest can only appear once on the network

If in doubt, email us anyway!

Jane Wright

Ink Publications is a contract publisher of travel magazines with a wide ranging reach. E.g. Hemisphere magazine for United Airlines reaches 9 million passengers a month. Metropolitan was the first magazine launched in 10 years for the Eurostar fleet. It is not a travel magazine format but modelled on a news stand magazine with 6 8 pages on features with a keen emphasis on the arts. It reaches audiences travelling to and from London, Paris and Brussells. Magazines at Ink are run by an Editor and a Deputy so have very small teams. The Telegraph Magazine has a team of seventeen.

Supply information as soon as possible. PRs need to think about the magazine, its format, audience and what the editor has to work with before getting in touch. Think about how to make the editors job as easy as possible!

Liz Anderson
Thank you for asking me to be here today.

I have been at the Spectator magazine for more than 20 years, the past 16 as arts editor, and before that I have worked for other magazines and the Sunday Times and the Daily Telegraph.

You probably all know that the Spectator is a weekly magazine, divided broadly into two: back and front halves with a few columnists and other features letters etc in between. The front half is largely political and the back half is cultural that is, books and arts. And there is inevitably some crossover.

Which brings me to my first point about PR in general. Read the magazine/newspaper that you are getting in touch with. Know its contents. I have lost count of the number of telephone calls, let alone emails, asking whether I can put their show/event/whatever in the listings section of the magazine. The Spectator does NOT have a listing section. It may well have in the future, but doesnt at the moment and times/things change so I recommend buying the Spectator at least twice a year (although I hope you already subscribe) so you can see if there is any change of focus its no punishment its a jolly good read

Another bugbear is the unknown person who rings up, and feigns friendship. Hello, is that Liz? How are you today? Frankly, I know they couldnt give a damn how Im feeling. Get to the point, I feel like shrieking. And just as bad is the person who rings up to tell me about the event they are organising and is clearly reading verbatim usually in a drab monotone from the press release, which they will later send me. Thats a waste of everyones time. Probably all that Ive said makes me sound like a grumpy old thing, but of course without press officers and PR people I couldnt do my job, as I wouldnt know what was happening in the arts world: so I dont want to alienate you all completely

So how do I decide on the contents of the arts pages? I have a regular team of critics who cover opera, theatre, film, music, exhibitions, dance and so on. And to a huge extent I rely on their expertise you cant earn a living wage working as a critic for the Spectator, so the critics generally have other work as well as teachers, lecturers, freelance writers, etc etc. These critics will give me a list of what they are planning to see or hear a couple of weeks but sometimes only days in advance and I will usually agree or suggest alternatives. Each weeks arts lead is commissioned by me or my part-time deputy Lucy, so you can see that the arts staff is not exactly huge: one and a half of us. Apart from commissioning features, we will design the pages, research and get pictures, sub, proof-read and see the pages through to press. I get given the number of arts pages hopefully the number I ask for on a Wednesday afternoon, I will then do the rough layout on Wednesday/Thursday. And from then on the copy comes inwith the last review coming in overnight the following Tuesday/Wednesday, and we go to press usually by 10 am on Wednesday morning. I get hundreds of press releases each week most by email, a few by post. Some event, an exhibition will catch my eye and I will stop my finger pressing the delete button and read on. Again, I dislike the chummy approach from unknown writers Im sorry. But it IS important to build up a relationship between arts editors and press officers and PR people. The best ones will know the magazine and its readership and therefore the sort of features I run, and give me, for example, advance notice about a play and that a particular actor might be available for interview. Or a music venue might let me know that some composer is very keen on the Spectator and would love to write a piece. Im always up for suggestions as long as Im not plagued with ridiculous ones.that is counter-productive.

I try to plan features at least a month in advance, and over the past few weeks I have run interviews with the head of the Cultural Olympiad, the film director Steve McQueen, the actor Simon Callow, as well as pieces on Dickenss illustrators, on Desert Island Discs 70 birthday. So theres a real mixture of topics.Quite often one of my regular freelance contributors might tell me about an anniversary, an upcoming event or some such, and I will then commission a piece from them. We have a newish weekly column: culture notes, which are short about 250 words a go.. This could be a review of a play, a film, CD, DVD, art exhibition, a concert, a recital: anything that is not mainstream and that wont be reviewed by one of the regular critics. So Im always on the look-out for something quirkyAnd five times a year I have Fine Art Specials, for which I do try to commission things a month or two ahead, as there is room for four to five fine art features and need quite a lot of planning. Quite often exhibitions in France, Italy and Germany are covered I have excellent contributors who live in Venice and Paris etc. who will tell me whats on.
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The Spectator never stands still. We had a complete redesign about six months ago and every time theres a new editor (Ive worked for five) he (its always been a he so far, although the current deputy editor is a she) will have their own ideas on which way they want to take the magazine. The present editor is very keen quite rightly, natch on pictures. When I first arrived there was hardly a picture to be seen, although the magazine has always had cartoons. One can never be complacent times/things/people change. Thank you very much for listening to me and I do really mean that without you I wouldnt know what was happening in the arts and therefore wouldnt be able to do my jobso thank YOU for all your press releases well, most of them anyway.

Claire Saul
Freelancers have to be very open to ideas. While writing for an animal magazine, Claire has to pitch ideas and juggle many different features. My Weekly is Claires main client. She will write about health issues, days out, heritage and arts, human interest, all sorts of topics. Claire also writes for dance publications and writes for children in regional publications such as Splashlight.

The best scenario for a freelance journalist is when the commissioning editor gets in touch. Claire has to be loyal and not have similar items clashing across publications, which can take some juggling with different lead times. My Weekly has a 6 week lead time.

Photographs are the holy grail for freelance journalists as it can make or break their piece. If short on good images then the piece will get cut down or lost altogether. Writing is the easy bit! Photographs must be: high resolution subjects with eyes to camera and smiling!

Ideas with case studies are great and also improve the quality of the story. Claires pet peeves: 2 weeks notice Not enough or no photos

Claires needs and wants: Good flow of communication Good timing

Points made in the Q&A

Show you know the publication Get the ball rolling with building relationships. Lunches are useful but not essential, although very useful to put a face to a name. Be helpful, you will stick in the mind.

Use a one-size-fits-all press release then be proactive and targeted. Dont send high resolution images immediately, they are too big and clog up inboxes. Links to images online are useful. For The Spectator, 10-12% of subscriptions are for their online content and is growing. Personal contact is best!