In the hot seat:
Laura Onita: Retail Correspondent at The Daily Telegraph
Laura’s week:
- All focussed around delivering copy for both the Daily and Sunday editions.
- RNS statements and trading updates are followed closely.
- Very interested in supermarkets/ grocery sector. Innovation and strategic challenges. As well as challenges facing the corporate retail sector. M&A activity. CVA landscape.
- Monday and Wednesday are ‘best’ days for meetings with industry figures.
- Breakfast / coffee / lunch at Victoria is ideal.
- Couple of bullet points as to who and why relevant is fine.
- Happy to book months in advance if required to book CEO etc 30/45 mins.
- Tuesday & Thursday mornings generally busy – pitching ideas for Sunday & Monday
- Tues: 10.30am meeting – features and profile ideas for Sunday & Monday
- Monday therefore, a good day to pitch features and profiles
- Thurs: 10.30am meeting – news and scoops for Sunday edition
- Wednesday a good day for pitching news and scoop stories
- Tues: 10.30am meeting – features and profile ideas for Sunday & Monday
- Thursday very busy with focus on
- Copy for Friday’s edition as well as
- File Sunday’s features by 5pm
- Fridays are very busy too: File Sunday news stories by 4 pm.
- Saturday/Monday – interested in lighter content or read, trends, surveys.
Telegraph Business Team:
- Digital team starts at 6:30am.
- 7.30-10 am key stories flagged.
- No business conference meeting.
- 11 am stories are decided on. 75% certain.
- Print & online team work the same, as it’s all one team.
- Stories will generally go online first during the day. No set deadlines. When ready it goes up.
Top Tips:
- Pitches should focus on business themes: fund raisings, restructurings, new hires if well known, investment in other companies etc. Needs to be a ‘hard’ action.
- Surveys: # people spoken to and methodology needs to be clear.
- Quotes: Punchy, concise, contrarian is good.
- Exclusives: If offered, will try and come back within ideally 24 hours to confirm can run with story or decline. Saturday, Sunday and Monday opportunity for exclusives ideal.
- Case Studies / Megatrends: Need ‘concrete’ fasts to turn study into a feature. Human element important to talk to. Results orientated.
- Experts: Need short sharp comments sent in first. All about timings. Urgency and move quickly.
- Graphics and pictures are great, so include them alongside your story pitches. Helps pitches.
