How to pitch around the budget to the Telegraph Live Blog

Alessia Horwich (00:08):

Welcome to On The Rox, a podcast from Roxhill Media that asks some of the best journalists in the UK for their solutions to the kind of dilemmas that confront PRs daily. We know that there’s not a one size fits all way of communicating with journalists, so we are going direct to the writers in the newsroom to hear how they like to work with PRs and how to stand out in their inboxes. My name is Alessia Horwich. I’m a former Sunday Times journalist, now the brand director at Roxhill. Today we’re going to be talking about how to pitch around the budget to the Telegraph Live blogs with the publications markets editor Chris Price. So Chris, this is a question I always ask journalists at the top of the podcast is how did you get into journalism? Was it the classic, do your degree and then do your NCTJ or was it a bit more crazy than that?

Chris Price (00:52):

So controversially, I didn’t actually do full NCTJ. My career has meandered to the position where I’m sort of in now, but so I guess I did my English and philosophy degree and got towards the end of it and thought, gosh, I need to do something important with my life and journalism had always sort of appealed a bit and I did student radio for a while, which was so much fun, but got me into the broadcasting side. Then I did a postgraduate in radio and television journalism, which was great fun and I started freelancing after that and then I ended up getting a job in Kent at the KM Media Group, and so I was a local reporter there for a while and several years later here I’m sitting next to you

Alessia Horwzich (01:46):

And now you’re at The Telegraph. But you’ve been a business journalist for a long time. How many budgets do you think you’ve covered in total in your whole life?

Chris Price (01:53):

Okay, so I did do four years as business editor in local journalism, well at Kent online. I’ve been in business journalism with a Telegraph for three years at that time. Now that’s seven fiscal event like autumn statements or budgets. I think the November 26th budget is my seventh.

Alessia Horwich (02:15):

Is your seventh at Telegraph. I was wondering actually in local news, is it easier to cover the budget because you have to be so specific. I mean I guess you’re picking out all of the things that are relevant.

Chris Price (02:23):

Things are so different. So you are working on a much traditionally with a much smaller team and there’s not so much of the live elements really. It was about the good angle that we would get that would be something that was important for us to then take on further. So just a totally different way of covering a budget, whereas now it really is, it’s just much bigger.

Alessia Horwich (02:49):

It’s such a beast isn’t it.

Chris Price (02:50):

It is.

Alessia Horwich (02:51):

I want to know how the whole team talks about the budget before the budget. I mean we are at the time of the autumn statement at the moment, but when the big one comes as well, I guess that the process is relatively similar, but how do you strategize around it and then where does budget coverage appear in all the different bits of print online and then your blog and then we can talk specifically about the live blog and how you approach it there.

Chris Price (03:19):

The latest budget has been a process that has just been going on so long, so it doesn’t feel like there was a start point in terms of planning because January we had this surge in borrowing costs, which then sort of showed that the chance was need to do something and then she had a spring statement where she sort of set up welfare changes and then she couldn’t pass them because of this back bench rebellion. So really it has been just a story that’s constantly been involved. We’ve just been constantly building up to how is the chancellor going to balance the nation’s finances. So this budget more than any has really, really just sort of enveloped so much of what we’ve done.

Alessia Horwich (04:01):

So it’s different to other budgets. Do you think that the way that you’ve had to treat the budget has changed through your career through those seven fiscal events that you’ve been talking about?

Chris Price (04:10):

So at The Telegraph, I think at first there would’ve been a blog. We would’ve gone big on it, but there would’ve been say a politics blog and a business blog and then you would’ve had lots of reporters picking out themes and writing up separate stories about those and then making sure the newsletters had what they needed to make sure that they went out podcasts and audio to make sure that they had what they needed. There were a lot of different plates being spun. Now we are spinning those plates, but there’s a bit more focus. I think now we have, for example, this year we will have one block where we put it all in rather than separate. Trying to separate it between an economic side and politics side. Really the reader just wants one approach to it. So

Alessia Horwich (04:55):

Have you done that for the readers rather than for you guys?

Chris Price (04:58):

All decisions are based on what we think the readership wants most. Previously we would’ve maybe thought much more about how it’s then going to transition into print, whereas now the business so much more is just focused on how it’s going to look on the app and how it’s going to look online and then print follows from that. For example, I will not think about how what I’m doing is going to look in print at all. I would just think about making sure that live coverage looks as good and as vibrant as possible with as many different voices in it as possible with many different covering all the different topics in the way that we need to. But I won’t then be thinking, oh, and now I need to turn it into something for print. That’s just not how we do it. Now, a team that looks after print say, right, this is the best way to now seal this content that we’ve created.

Alessia Horwich (05:50):

Do you think the PR should therefore not think about that?

Chris Price (05:53):

We are Telegraph Media group. The business is about getting out news in the way that the readership just wants to receive it. I don’t say, oh, I work for a newspaper. I just say I work for a photograph. And then people tend to say, oh, in newspapers and I sort of rub my eyes. I understand that’s obviously the huge legacy of the business, but really it’s just we’re not thinking about print deadlines, things like that. That’s how we focus on the business, looking at that longer, that cycle through the day rather than just trying to hit one deadline.

Alessia Horwich (06:25):

One print deadline. Yeah. Okay. So let’s talk about the live blog. What are you guys aiming to do on budget day with the live blog?

Chris Price (06:31):

The key thing is first of all, you want to cover any last minute drama buildup leading up to the event. You want to create that sense of anticipation and there are the set pieces that you’ll cover and try and do well and with some insight and anything that you can sort of pick up on when the Chancer stands up with their box, is there anything there that we can see in her body language or anything like that

Alessia Horwich (06:58):

That’s like immediately pre speech then?

Chris Price (07:00):

Yeah, so pre speech, we’ll start a blog quite early in the morning. We’ll be listening to the radio, we’ll be watching what the ministers are saying position are saying. The great thing is we will also be dealing with all of the journalists across the newsroom. It’s not just myself and Dom on the day who would just be looking after the blog. We’ll have analysis by our top figures, you know Camilla Tominey, Gordon Rayners of the world. Szu Ping Chang who our economics editor feeding in what the important themes are that people are going to want to look out for.

Alessia Horwich (07:36):

Do you coordinate that and what’s happening? Do they kind of come to you and say, I’ve got this, or how does that work?

Chris Price (07:41):

So it’s probably easy to sort think about it when we sort of then get to the speech because then one of us in the terms of the two people we’re looking after the blog, one of us will cover what the chancellor is saying, the other person will deal with, okay, how are we going to present this information as clear as possible? So working on our summary, making sure that’s like I’ve got all of the key points written in as easy to understand was as interesting a way as possible. Moving that on as it changes throughout the speech, but also dealing with if someone sends us in a bit of audio analysis, making sure that that’s packaged up, sent off to whoever needs it and sent off and then packaged up, got into the blog like nice and quick one

Alessia Horwich (08:29):

Speech, who would send that to you?

Chris Price (08:30):

Gordon Rayner has sent it. Tim Wallace, deputy economics editor does great insight during the speech really across that. And then also you’ll have insight written or audio that we’ll put into the blog from all the sectoral based reporters. So say there’s some sort of science announcement, Sarah Knapton, our science editor might write something, send that in. And crucially then you are leaning on their experitse

(08:59):

To bring whatever that announcement is to life and tell the reader why that is actually important. Rather than us just saying, the chancellor said this because we have two people working on the blog at that time and we have just this huge array of talented people with all of their insight. It’s sort of easier for everyone to just channel into that one big item and then obviously as the speech goes on, there will be something that’s really important. You go, do you know what that needs to be written up as? It’s this whole thing,

Alessia Horwich (09:28):

Yes

Chris Price (09:28):

But it’s about doing that in a being selective.

Alessia Horwich (09:32):

How does that work? I mean, is it immediately obvious to you that it’s a bigger issue and I assume you don’t commission it out, but you chat and you say, we should write something more about that.

Chris Price (09:41):

No, so the business desk on the day who combine on the day of the budget will commission what they think is the most important things and that will be done then directly with whoever is,

Alessia Horwich (09:53):

But then that gets exerted, doesn’t it, into the blog and with a link out to the, yeah,

Chris Price (09:57):

Once that’s, of course we’ll flag it. The whole point is that it’s an easy access point for all of the information as it’s happening as quickly as possible for the reader. Everyone’s just trying to make sense of what’s coming out as quickly as possible. But crucially, we just try not to totally bombard the readership. I mean, previous years we’ve done so many different separate pieces on all the different topics, and actually it’s again, you’re just then sort giving the reader so much to go forward.

Alessia Horwich (10:26):

Are you seeing from the stats it’s not worth it? It’s too much?

Chris Price (10:29):

Yeah, the readership can get that information from less points of contact, if you know what I mean. So it’s just making sure that it’s packaged in the right way. If a piece needs to have several bylines on it because actually it’s sort of been made up of lots of smaller bits of insight from a breadth of really insightful reporters, then it’s a better way of doing it than just getting that one reporter to write, say 600 words on one part of it.

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Alessia Horwich (11:50):

I’m obviously thinking about it from a PR perspective, so I assume that speech finishes and then all hell breaks loose. In terms of reactive comment for you guys

Chris Price (11:59):

And during the speech

Alessia Horwich (12:00):

And during, well, I mean I think most of the journalists we speak to say don’t pitch during the speech Busy, obviously.

Chris Price (12:06):

Yeah. I mean that doesn’t stop people, but even before the budget we will have a lot of people and sometimes there’s merit in that.

Alessia Horwich (12:14):

Yeah. When does that work?

Chris Price (12:16):

It is a bombardment, and so you’re likely to look at any correspondence from someone you know at the time, not before that you built the relationship up with before because you’re going to know that they’re probably not sending over for the sake of it. The worst is, oh, I see. You might be covering the budget today, and so we thought you might want this comment from whoever, which says something that everyone said, and I get why that gets sent. I don’t get cross about it. We’re all just trying to do our job,

Alessia Horwich (12:47):

But it’s a mad day though, right? Yeah, really you need all the help you can get.

Chris Price (12:51):

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think from a PRs perspective, that work that can be done in the lead up to the budget is probably the biggest part of that budget coverage rather than whatever gets sent on the day because it’s just impossible to look at all of it. It’s just generally is impossible.

Alessia Horwich (13:09):

Do you have any idea how many emails you got last time

Chris Price (13:12):

Over the budget?

Alessia Horwich (13:14):

Yeah,

Chris Price (13:15):

There’s hundreds and hundreds. I don’t want to say a thousand, that sounds crazy, but maybe it is. We’ll set up channels to converse with ourselves in the news room that aren’t email because there’s just no point on that on the day. You just need separate ways, separate methods of making sure that information’s being passed around the news team. Everything would just get lost in an inbox sadly.

Alessia Horwich (13:35):

Are there specific themes that the Telegraph readers are more interested about? Well, more interested in that you would therefore be more interested in a comment on

Chris Price (13:44):

Tax rises has been the thing that has underpinned. I think all of this budget, the nation’s finances, things are tight and when things are tight in the nation’s finances, any sort of slight change in attitude or feeling among operators in the bond markets particularly is going to then have an impact on the government’s plans. The massive theme for us is where these tax rise is going to fall.

Alessia Horwich (14:12):

You kind of know for yourself potentially what the big stories are going to be or hope that, would you take briefings on things like that in advance of the budget from execs or if the PR wanted to meet you and to help you with your knowledge around that area?

Chris Price (14:29):

Absolutely, yeah, that’s so helpful to, if executives are able to spare some time, we do it off the record is fine, background is fine. Sometimes they can be really useful for someone to just say, look, you got 15 minutes for a conversation. Even a coffee, if someone’s just got a little bit of time, just say, look, I just want to give you my track on what I think is important here. I’m not saying it’s always going to be the focal point of what we do, but sometimes those conversations are what make us, unless we’ve got our ears to the ground, we’re just not going to know what’s in, what’s important.

Alessia Horwich (15:08):

Budget’s massive. There’s so much to write about, how do you even try to pick out stuff?

Chris Price (15:14):

So the biggest topics that the graph would be concerned about average ship are really worried about what’s happening to their pensions in the future. They are, they’re really worried about whether their accounts taxes going to come up. They’re really worried about education for their children, grandchildren, how the workforce is looking. Is the welfare bill sustainable? Are people being allowed and helped encouraged into work in a rather thing? In our country, we have a lot of people in a situation of worklessness, not in a job, but not necessarily looking for a job either. So what’s been done to address that?

Alessia Horwich (15:55):

If you’re getting comment, what kind of spokespeople are you interested in hearing from and what kind of quotes are you looking for?

Chris Price (16:02):

From my side, so I’ll tend to deal much more with economists and analysts. Fund managers give some good insights for us that we use in the budget. So bosses of household name companies are always going to get a lot of coverage on the day. As I say, there is a lot going on. So two or three lines is more than enough.

Alessia Horwich (16:24):

Yeah, because I think the last time we spoke, you said the best quotes, they’re just really succinct and also there’s this emphasis on saying something that’s not just commentary, but it’s analysis. Is that true?

Chris Price (16:36):

Yes. What are you going to just tell me that I just didn’t know? I think before think about what your priorities, what are the things that you are most hoping that’s going to be achieved, and then do you get it yes or no? If it’s no, then whim across about what is going to be the problem with that? Why is this going to be something that a telegraph reader, why does it matter to them what’s upsetting me? And then try and say that in as few words as possible because everyone is trying to do that. So quite rightly, we are getting viewpoints from as much breadth of the business sphere, the political sphere and households around the nation as much as possible. So because we want breadth, we need it to be put across then as succinctly as possible, what a business or a client of a PR firm has to say is important. They’ll have an important thing to say, but what we’re in the business of is communicating what’s important to other people. And we are really short of time and the people who can help us get across their message in a way that is of concise and vibrant right there and then are obviously going to be favoured much more quickly than those where we’re going to have to try and sit there and work it out. Because some days like budget day, just haven’t got time to work it out.

Alessia Horwich (18:03):

How late is too late for delivering commentary? How long does the kind of train the trail of the budget go?

Chris Price (18:09):

I mean, I thought about this question and when we talk about the lead up to this budget, it really wasn’t a situation of us thinking, right? We’re building up to the budget. The news flow just kept building towards it. And so afterwards it will be less about saying, well, the budget was this and that, but the issues will still be massively important so we have a new reality after. You’ll see the themes that various news organisations pick up as the ones that they want to champion or think are most important or that need the most scrutiny. And so couch it around those themes rather than you’re still doing budget coverage actually, but it just wouldn’t be sold that way. Timing is everything. It we’ll be totally into one story at one time and then something happens and just the interest of the ship moves over so we move over. I appreciate it must be frustrating for a PR professional when you think, right, okay, they’re into this topic and you get ready and then you get a great quote and you’ve got the nurse language, you send it out, but actually then the story’s just moved on 12 hours earlier. And I guess that’s every job has pitfalls, doesn’t it?

Alessia Horwich (19:20):

I guess it does. Yeah.

Chris Price (19:20):

I guess that’s probably the thing. I’ll just try and say don’t think the budgets ended. I mean, we probably wouldn’t use the words budget much more than a week after, maybe even less than that. But the themes will continue. But that is why that relationship before is good because then you will know, I know that this is important. I know my person is really good on this subject and I know that they’ll be happy to talk about this subject really quickly and this has happened and I think it’d be good to talk about that and you can act quickly.

Alessia Horwich (19:51):

Do you end up phoning people then phoning prs to get quotes and things like that if you are chasing something specific or is it mostly passive?

Chris Price (19:58):

No, I do do, I do, I do, but it’s the ones I know I’ll get a result with. It’s the ones every journalist, every now and again, something happens that’s really important, really big. And I think I need some voices of some good people and you’ll ring up one or two that, but there’s a big thing about leveraging someone else’s time as well. So if a PR professional, I just know that they’ve also know three other people that I know would be quite good. I probably only need one or two, but I can try a couple of others, but I can say, Hey, unless can you help me get hold of, I need someone to talk about this. I need an hour. And they say, leave with me and I don’t have to think about it. And then they call back in half an hour or 15 minutes and they say, I’ve got this person that’ll talk to in 15 minutes. Wonderful, thank you. And that’s the buildup of the relationship before, isn’t it? Rather than thinking that’s happened. So I’ll send this to this journalist and fingers crossed it gets used,

Alessia Horwich (20:59):

What is the most helpful thing a PR can do for you on budget day? And I assume it’s just be reliable, be available and be quick.

Chris Price (21:09):

Yeah, I mean you’ve pretty much hit the nail on the head. I mean also don’t get cross, don’t ring. There’s so much happening and the ones that I enjoy working with the most just get that. Sometimes my attention will be a bit move around different types and then sometimes I’ll call someone two or three times in quite a short period of time and they’ll think, oh, this is great. I’m getting lows here. But then I might think lent on them quite a lot and do you know what? I’ve got someone else I want to sort of build a relationship with. Or then just the story moves somewhere else and it’s just not what their field is. It’s the ones that just think, oh, it’s okay. It’s just the ebb and flow of your relationship with the journalists. I think those are the ones that I enjoy working with most. Don’t get crossed with this when I haven’t got in touch. It really isn’t personal. And likewise, I don’t take it personally when someone sends me a follow-up email on a topic, I just know that it’s happening because they’ve been asked to. And if I didn’t find it interesting the first time, maybe I might probably wouldn’t find it interesting second time, but impressed about that because everyone’s just trying to get the job done, aren’t they?

Alessia Horwich (22:25):

Yeah.

Chris Price (22:26):

So it’s fine.

Alessia Horwich (22:26):

Let’s do the quick recap at the end. So for you, pitching to you guys on the live blog on budget day, what are the three things that a PR should remember?

Chris Price (22:35):

Something insightful that I haven’t already thought about as the obvious thing with regard to whatever topic it is? Language that’s a few words in it that’s going to really excite the reader. Just keep going. If you send a comment, it just gets totally ignored. We’ll do that thing sometimes where we think, oh right, I’m going to write about this topic. I’ve just search through my emails and then I go, oh, I have actually got something in my inbox that someone sent me 45 minutes ago, an hour ago. I’ll use that. I would just say probably don’t ring on budget. It probably won’t get answered.

Alessia Horwich (23:10):

Chris, thank you so much. You’ve given us loads of great tips. Good luck.

Chris Price (23:15):

Thank you