How to pitch parenting content to The Times & The Sunday Times with Editorial Projects Director, Helen Davies

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 parenting content to the Times and Sunday Times with the titles Editorial Projects director Helen Davies. Should we start Helen by just telling me a little bit about how you got into journalism? Was it the classic?

Helen Davies (00:47):

No, I wasn’t seven at home in my room, kind of watching the news and writing my own front pages. I didn’t know what the word Scoop was. I still haven’t had a one, I don’t think, apart from David Cameron’s shed, I revealed that. Oh, nice. That was me. No, I started as books editor or assistant books editor on the Times Higher Education supplement. Okay. Yeah. And then that was then owned by the same company that owns the Sunday Times. I just moved across the road, did turn the Sunday Times down first. I said I don’t want to do it, and then I was told rather forcefully, no one turns the Sunday Times down.

Alessia Horwich (01:24):

What was the role, the first role

Helen Davies (01:25):

That you into Assistant editor on home, which had just launched or was just about to launch and I mean back then there was a lot more people in the newsroom and just getting in was just kind of amazing. Yeah, and then it looks like I’ve been there ever since.

Alessia Horwich (01:45):

How is it different today than it was back then? I mean, is it better or worse? Not better or worse? Is it harder or easier now?

Helen Davies (01:54):

Harder actually. I think everyone is finding life harder with the 24/7 kind of push and whether you are in PR or on the papers or anything or just like, okay, well this is what it’s going to look like in print and this is what it’s going to look like in digital, but we need a vertical digital and we need a landscape digital. Then we need some talking sound bites and has anyone sort of TikTok yet. It’s just kind of relentless and the difficulty is then what we want to do is cut through all that noise and just really cherry pick the very best stories and then amplify those and then that’s what you get to read or hopefully subscribe for. Otherwise, it’s all just too much. But I would say yeah, it’s different.

Alessia Horwich (02:33):

Helen, your title is Editorial Projects Director.

Helen Davies (02:36):

Yeah.

Alessia Horwich (02:37):

It’s not super clear what you do. Can you explain what your role is and what you’re working on?

Helen Davies (02:41):

I can, although initially I think it’s a bit unclear, it’s just can you do this Helen? Generally, but I would say the core part of my role is the key projects and legacy projects of the Sunday Times, though I do the Rich List, the Giving List, best places to Live, parent Power, the Good university guide, the tax list, the Get Britain Reading campaign, which we’ve just launched. Sometimes I stand in and do comments when the editors are away. It’s a lot, but it’s also varied, so it’s kind of brilliant. And actually it’s the success of the educational project that kind of moves neatly into why we launched parenting.

Alessia Horwich (03:17):

So let’s talk about this parenting version. This is what we’re here today to talk about because we’ve been speaking to other journalists and they have all been saying how important parenting content is to the Times in the Sunday Times. Why is that?

Helen Davies (03:28):

There are a few reasons. I think one basic kind of data showed that people really wanted it. We got huge subscribers from that very core audience that everyone is after the kind of younger clued in women. And the Sunday Times has always been known for aspiration and I think that’s become quite difficult word, but things like parent power are about that, but in a way that’s kind of manageable almost. It’s the right kind of aspiration I think.

Alessia Horwich (03:58):

Tell us a bit about Parent Power and what it actually is.

Helen Davies (03:59):

Yeah, sorry, if people dunno, again, it’s like code in the office. See that’s a print headline print, whereas it translates as Best Schools Guide in Digital. Okay. So it’s essentially lead table of the top schools in the uk. It’s a huge kind of fight to get it out. And yes, it’s almost a million people have read the launch article from last year.

Alessia Horwich (04:23):

Wow, okay. That’s a big deal.

Helen Davies (04:25):

So parents are interested.

Alessia Horwich (04:25):

Yeah, but when you say parenting content, it’s not just lead tables for schools.

Helen Davies (04:30):

No, absolutely not. So it’s like you’ve seen the league table, but we want to keep you as a subscriber. What else can we offer you to read? It’s a very engaged audience, but only at set points. So there are a lot of parents out there, but only a small number will want to know everything from Naugh to three and then there’ll be another call number. That same number again could be brilliant, but they’re only interested in five year olds and then seven year olds. So you actually have to produce quite a lot of content and sort of look at engagement as well as the kind of numbers. Grandparenting stories do brilliantly. Any story that weaves in expert advice that you can’t get elsewhere, which is one of our core reasons for doing it. They do brilliantly. Anything on whether you’ve got a narcissist in your family flies for all the wrong and right reasons, but more seriously, we felt that there wasn’t parenting content. As papers and magazines have evolved, as space has become tighter, you have to fight much harder to get stories in.

(05:32):

Actually without noticing, we probably cut out parenting. It didn’t have its own section, so it didn’t keep going and it’s across all titles, it is just sort of filtered out. I had a step from someone the other day that says children spend 90% of their time outside school hours. And so parenting is really, really important. It’s the job that you will do for life. A generation coming through the world into which you are parenting feels quite different from the one that you knew. So there’s actually kind of quite a lot to learn at the same time, putting it bluntly, there wasn’t much discussion about the polarisation of online forums and online porn when we were growing up, it just wasn’t an issue. Whereas now you hear of schoolchildren seeing the headings in a playground when they’re 11. So issues are really important, but we also wanted to celebrate the joy of parenting because that’s definitely not out there enough and that’s really gone down well with readers particularly we have a newsletter every week so you can sign up for that for free and that goes to all non-subscribers and in that people across the newsroom talk about their experiences.

(06:42):

So again, it’s personal, it’s opening up, it’s shining a light on those tiny little things that actually make your day, that make conversation. They’re on all your WhatsApp groups, that’s what you talk about, but they just don’t make it to the papers.

Alessia Horwich (06:55):

I mean it’s that content. There’s original content put into that newsletter and set up

Helen Davies (06:58):

Yes. Once a week, Friday lunchtime

Alessia Horwich (07:01):

Friday lunch. Well yeah, you must go and all the PRS should sign up for that to see what kind of thing is going in there and how they can help that.

Helen Davies (07:06):

Absolutely. That will give you a guide. It will set the tone at the top with a writer. You’ll also be able to see, it’s always quite good when you have a say a sports journalist writing about something that you might not think they write about or we had a man in Rome, Tom Kington wrote about how his barber knew his son more than he did and he hadn’t realised this, but he would go to the barbers and the barber would talk to his son every time and then he went to the barber and then the barber’s like, your son’s going to be fine. And he was like, oh. So that’s where these big conversations had been taking place. But again, it’s real life really that you kind of want to sort of celebrate in a way.

Alessia Horwich (07:49):

I guess it’s interesting the way that parenting is something that links lots of people in the newsroom, lots of parents,

Helen Davies (07:54):

yes

Alessia Horwich (07:54):

Even though they’re dealing with different beats. And I think that’s probably the same for your audience as well, regardless of what your profession is or anything.

Helen Davies (08:00):

Absolutely right

Alessia Horwich (08:01):

There’s a lot of links.

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Alessia Horwich (08:59):

For other bits of content. How does it work? Are you aggregating things from different parts of the paper? Where is parenting content most likely to appear or is that a proper question? Is it everywhere?

Helen Davies (09:09):

No, it is. We’re manually curating the top stories on the parenting page. So we don’t want them to just take the automatic story that might have the word grandparent or parent or child in. You’ll get news stories on a sex abuse case going through court for example, and that’s not the tone and the feel we want for parenting. So we do curate it. So most often it will be T two. So I think you all know Nicola Jeal and Grace Bradbury to pitch to. And so again, that kind of immediate reactive sort of story to Gwyneth Paltro admits that she wants a child or she’s, oh my god, okay, everyone. Has anyone got anyone who’s Gwyneth’s age who’s done this, who’s done that? It’s a lot. Very first person led that kind of stuff

Alessia Horwich (09:51):

It’s a lot. Very first person led that kind of stuff now at the time isn’t it

Helen Davies (09:54):

And so again, pitch to Nicola and Grace, they say yes or no, then we can push it, highlight it, and then we might also just take on if it’s doing well, the social media side, make sure it gets a bit more love.

Alessia Horwich (10:08):

I imagine from a PR perspective, that’s going to be your clients, a brand owner potentially who’s had that struggle and then you can have a credit for their brand at the end or they can talk about their brand within that.

Helen Davies (10:18):

There’s always ways of weaving things in like that. There are always ways we don’t make them a condition, but there are definitely easy ways of saying so and it’s rule one, number one of journalism. Tell the person’s name and tell them what they do and where they do it.

Alessia Horwich (10:32):

But it has to be a good story.

Helen Davies (10:34):

Absolutely. And I say that’s the one thing that hasn’t changed in journalism and the one thing doesn’t is that no matter what the platform, we just want good stories. It’s literally then that’s it. And then once you have the story, you can decide what’s the best way of telling that story, who’s the best writer for that story. Some of the topics and issues can take three different takes over six weeks because some of these things are so nutty, they’re difficult, they’re complicated. You can’t just do how to solve, how to cope with a sulky teen or teen that stopped talking to you in like, that’s all right, 1200 words done, that’s it. Come back next year ion. No, exactly. So that doesn’t work. So we do return to themes. The newsletter will show you the personal take of someone on the Times or Sunday times, and that might just be really interesting for you, for any of your other clients, if it’ll be a different way in to approach those journalists. Then you will also see highlights of pieces that we’ve run that week at the end as a sort of, and something for you, and that might be tickets to somewhere. It could be money off whistles, clothes, whatever it is. There’s a slot

Alessia Horwich (11:42):

Who puts that together.

Helen Davies (11:43):

So best contact for, that’s Hannah Swirling. Hannah works Tuesday to Friday and is absolutely key to parenting

Alessia Horwich (11:49):

In terms of other slots across the paper

Helen Davies (11:51):

Yeah,

Alessia Horwich (11:52):

I mean the magazines I guess.

Helen Davies (11:54):

Yes. And so Nicola Jeal, the gatekeeper to everything.

Alessia Horwich (11:58):

I mean, Nicola’s one of these figures that we hear her name and it’s whispered, but no one’s ever seen her.

Helen Davies (12:05):

She exists. I can tell you that. And she’ll tell you yes or no extremely quickly.

Alessia Horwich (12:09):

Yeah, I mean is it worth sending Nicola a pitch or is it better

Helen Davies (12:12):

always It is

Alessia Horwich (12:13):

Okay.

Helen Davies (12:13):

Yeah. She’s someone that just wants stories and she’ll go, yes, no, yes, no, yes. No, no, no, no, no.

Alessia Horwich (12:21):

What do you think would be your top tip for a PR sending a pitch to Nicola? Jill? It’s brevity.

Helen Davies (12:25):

Absolutely brevity. Be really clear what you think the story is. I suppose now thinking of me, I definitely don’t want to speak on behalf of Nicola. We are doing it also to drive subscriptions. It’s not selling old fashioned papers.

(12:40):

So the idea of what it might look like online or what that headline would be is important. So that’s kind of what you have to think about. So it’s not in the days of like there’s a cute picture and we’ve done, the subs have come up with this amazing alliterative headline that’s a pun on a book title from the 19th century, which used to happen all the time. That won’t happen now. So it’s really got to be, do you think you were parented by a narcissist? Find out if you were or we had my nine rules for being a grandparent by the psychotherapist, why I keep my daughter away from her grandparents. That was good. I’m not breastfeeding why a mother’s still pressured into it. So again, 10 things parents should know about raising teens, but by an expert. That’s a mix of stories that were across two titles, but they were the ones with the most subscriptions. They’re also across all age groups of parenting. So that’s the issue. So people say, but what story do you want? And I’m like, well, I want all of them across all ages and all types because you want a long read, a piece of analysis or investigation and they can come from news. This week Sean Linton did a great one into midwives who investigation into why they should stop promoting natural births.

(13:55):

That came into our section as well because it was well researched. It wasn’t based on just one report, it was long article and it covered lots of human stories. So I think it’s the human angle that we need as well as the experts, and then we’ll do it, but we would never run five personal pieces in a row. So it’s light and shade, it’s different. So much is about timing, but actually with a lot of it, we are working as a desk without necessarily knowing what’s coming up. So if for example, weekend section on the Times, which also has some fantastic parenting pieces, they’re really good, particularly with the expert led,

Alessia Horwich (14:34):

Who’s the best person to pitch to on weekend for parenting? Is it Rachel Cocker?

Helen Davies (14:37):

Yes, I’d say Rachel.

Alessia Horwich (14:39):

Okay.

Helen Davies (14:39):

There could easily be weeks when weekend might do a special that for example, gardening or swimming pools and the magazine has got a big political interview and an overseas investigation and just doesn’t have any of those parenting thing. In which case we would want to publish parenting only stories from our desk. We are essentially from the parenting desk, but often you’ll find you’ll get to Thursday and all of a sudden our system will suddenly fill up, there’ll suddenly be 10 parenting stories and you’ll be brilliant. We push ours back so you’re not necessarily publishing to an agenda because these are just really big interesting topics. So you can pitch without saying it has to go up by X. We’ve got a bit more space actually,

Alessia Horwich (15:27):

I guess if you’re a PR pitching something that is hooked to a new story, it’s go to T two, get it done with them, or weekend I guess, which is relatively short lead. But if it’s not, you could pitch it to you guys for

Helen Davies (15:39):

Absolutely. I mean we will definitely still take the short ones if we think they’re kind of good enough. I think that’s the other thing is just because we do parenting doesn’t mean we want every single parenting story.

Alessia Horwich (15:50):

Would you ever get a pitch and then say, right, well we can’t take this for now, but would you farm it out to if you thought it was good enough, would you give it to Nicola or would you give it to

Helen Davies (15:58):

Yes. We’ve said to go through the traditional way. I have to say that helps with my budget as well.

Alessia Horwich (16:02):

Oh yeah.

Helen Davies (16:03):

Or if something’s come up and I’ll email Nicola and say, is there any interest in this interview with so-and-so? And then she’ll take yes, yes or no. It’s quite a bit on intuition in a way.

Alessia Horwich (16:12):

Well I think commissioning is a lot like that from a lot of people we speak to is your initial reaction to the pitch,

Helen Davies (16:16):

have a bit of a gut feeling. And I think that’s the thing. If you are pitching and your emailing in and you’re kind of emailing in and you kind of think, oh, how do I address this? What do I do if you are not interested? If you are not going to click on that email title, then don’t send it to me without being too rude. It’s like its got to be interesting. Got to get my attention in my inbox the same way it would if it landed if my newsletter landed in yours. We have to sell stories, which is not something we like to talk about, but you do.

Alessia Horwich (16:46):

In terms of experts. Tell me a bit about what’s the kind of credentials that you’re looking for or is it more about they have to have something really interesting to say succinctly?

Helen Davies (16:56):

I’d say both. Generally, I would say just by force of habit, they tend to be an expert that’s just got a book out if we’re honest. And

Alessia Horwich (17:04):

Would you take something like an influencer or,

Helen Davies (17:06):

Yes,

(17:07):

But we wouldn’t call them an expert. So we would call them an influencer or basically we would check out their credentials. So if they were a member of the Royal Society of Psychiatrists and we looked at their CV and their kind of papers, then yes, we would call them an expert, but we wouldn’t necessarily just call them an expert for the sake of it. I think there’s a lot of important sort of brand alignment that’s needed as well. So actually there’s a lot of really interesting things that are happening. People are looking at the neuroscience of a teenager, well, how does your brain work when you’re 11? What should it see or not see? What damage can that do if an adult boy’s brain doesn’t really become an adult until 25? Should we do something about that? And that’s the kind of expertise and the sort of forefront of thinking that we know that that’s what people want to get their hands on. That’s what the Times is used for across all the other desks. So why

Alessia Horwich (17:57):

Shouldn’t we do it? How influential is video and imagery in pitching these stories?

Helen Davies (18:03):

It’s a good question. I think the initial thing is it’s all about the good story and then what’s the best way of telling it. But imagery is as always important. If you’re writing a personal story and you’re putting your name to it, then it’s always nice to have your pictures otherwise. So what sometimes it’s really useful to have pictures of case studies. If we’re doing big roundup of case studies, social is really important and particularly with an influencer, we’re open to collaborations. That’s not a problem for next year. I’d like to do more bespoke one-off limited series newsletters on a theme. So we talked about the different ages and stages of parenting. So it could be that we just pick one of those targeted and it will be how to get through exam season or something that’s just much more tailored.

Alessia Horwich (18:53):

And that’s quite a good way for PRS to look at it in a sense, isn’t it pitching around exam season stories and then it’s quite fun.

Helen Davies (19:02):

It’s fun. And then it gets back to the normal anniversary. Journalism doesn’t always work, but sometimes it does. And then they send you the one that does. And then you’ve got, it’s really difficult to explain why you don’t want to do their story.

Alessia Horwich (19:15):

Is it in a pitch? Is it worth sort of saying, my story is concentrating on this age of parenting or anything like that?

Helen Davies (19:24):

Potentially. Have we overlooked a particular age group? Is there a phrase that’s being used that hasn’t cut through yet, but might And then we could.

Alessia Horwich (19:35):

You’ve written about the six seven thing.

Helen Davies (19:37):

That’s one of the stories that did well. So we commissioned it, had it in then when it was in the system, Nicola decided she wants it.

Alessia Horwich (19:44):

Okay.

Helen Davies (19:45):

I would say probably giving away too many secrets, but essentially pitch you in a Wednesday. If we can get the copy in on Friday, Monday’s a good time to get slightly more exposure

Alessia Horwich (19:56):

Pitching on Wednesday. Yes. And turnaround is important to be available, especially if you’re pitching an expert. I assume if you want to turn something around for Friday, you’re going to need to speak to that expert quickly

Helen Davies (20:05):

Yes. But also we are prepared to say, look, we’ll do that next Friday. We’ve got the time, particularly with an expert piece is to do it as well as possible. They should all be pieces that are worth subscribing for. I mean, I can’t say I’ve got a hundred percent track record, no journalist or commissioning editor has a hundred percent track record of absolutely amazing pieces. But we have enough and some really core ones that we’ve seen that really have driven traffic. They’re over a hundred thousand reads, they’re driving subscriptions. There’s definitely interest.

Alessia Horwich (20:35):

It’s so interesting that you talk about it like that now because sort of the new measurement, isn’t it for the Times?

Helen Davies (20:40):

It’s absolutely. The more personal, the more, I’m not going to use this in a derogatory way. A sort of clickbait broadsheet, Reddit version of a headline. Everyone’s interested, family breakdown, Adam Peaty dunno when this is going out. But that kind of thing. And then what we hope on the Sunday Times is do lots more mini versions of these projects. So we introduced this year effectively, it was a parent’s guide to apprenticeships, how to get your child a degree without the debt that did really well. The best postcodes for schools from naught to 18. Where are they clustered? Where’s the best place to buy for the best chance? So I think there’re a definite tone, different tones, and just try us because unless you email, you don’t know.

Alessia Horwich (21:27):

I just think from speaking to you now, that there’s a huge amount of possibility here because a lot that it covers and there’s a lot of opportunity for PRS to bring great stories to you.

Helen Davies (21:36):

We also take a lot from travel and those pieces do perform really well, but there’s a lot about travelling with children without children the first time you go away. And for that you can just pitch straight to travel culture did the best things to book now for Christmas, we changed the picture for that. Put the children’s ones at the top, put that in parenting. So we sort of beg and steal and kind of borrow. But I think we’re also hoping to just do quite a bit more planning

(22:04):

So you are not skipping from day to day. There are some core pieces that are in that are really interesting, potentially timeless, that gives us the nimbleness to then react very quickly and get just a great piece in if needed.

Alessia Horwich (22:18):

For you, what are the main things that a PR very succinctly needs to know about parenting at the times and Sunday Times?

Helen Davies (22:24):

We’re doing more of it. We’re taking it seriously with a sense of fun pitch with a headline that you would like to read or be interested in. You ultimately are the consumer, so what would you read? And if you have pictures and the pictures are brilliant and you think that might tip it, then obviously include them. But the rest of it’s all a bit more flexible. Yes. Yeah, just a good story. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you Alessia. Nice to see you again.