How to pitch quotes for business news with Angharad Carrick, This is Money

Alessia Horwich (00:07):

Welcome to On the Rox, a podcast from Roxhill Media that asks some of the best journalists in the UK for their answers to the questions that confront PRs daily. We know there’s not a one size fits all way of communicating with journalists, so we’re going direct to the writers in the newsroom to find out 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 head of brand at Roxhill. Today, we’re going to be talking about how PRs can pitch quotes for business news with Angharad Carrick, business news editor for This is Money. Okay. Angharad, let’s just kick off with you telling me about how you got into journalism. You’ve just told me that you started out as a PR.

Angharad Carrick (00:43):

I did.

Alessia Horwich (00:44):

How was that?

Angharad Carrick (00:45):

So I had actually got into PR during university and I needed a part-time job and there was a company that needed some kind of media monitoring. And I though, “Oh, it’s kind of interesting. It kind of keeps my mind working.” I was doing history at King’s and I kind of fell into it, which I always find is quite an annoying phrase because how do people fall into things? But it genuinely was, I had no idea what I wanted to do after I graduated. And I had always kind of had a bit of an interest in sort of finance and writing, but I really didn’t know what I wanted to do. So I worked at this PR firm for a couple of years and it was mostly sort of just really junior level kind of reading other people’s stuff and realising actually I really want to be on that side of things.

(01:37):

So I just did a short course and got my NCTJ and kind of fell into a job. It was just before the pandemic, so I’d started at City AM. It was kind of the dreamfirst job. And then the pandemic hit and everything sort of went a bit crazy.

Alessia Horwich (01:54):

What was it like actually working for City AM during the pandemic?

Angharad Carrick (01:57):

It was odd. I was there for a year and a half. So I joined in January and I think my first story was about coronavirus. And then obviously March, everything kind of went hits up. I think that is the official term. Yeah. I think it was really difficult because it’s really difficult to be in a newsroom if you’re working from home. It really, really is. I struggled with it. I did. It’s such a great place to learn and all of that. But when This Money kind of came knocking, I thought it was a good time to sort of move on.

Alessia Horwich (02:30):

What’s your favourite thing about working for This is Money?

Angharad Carrick (02:33):

There’s lots of things. The people are great. The senior team have been there for a long time, which I think speaks volumes about a place. You have a lot of freedom. It’s a fairly relaxed atmosphere. It’s not that sort of screaming at each other kind of newsroom that you sort of see in films. And I think it’s also the readers as well. They’re really, really engaged. The Daily Mail comments section is pretty brutal, but it’s also immediate feedback. So you kind of know what works and what doesn’t.

Alessia Horwich (03:04):

Who are your audience? What do you know about them?

Angharad Carrick (03:06):

They skew older.

Alessia Horwich (03:08):

Older than?

Angharad Carrick (03:09):

I would say sort of 50s, 60s. They tend to be slightly wealthier, especially for the This is Money audience rather than sort of Daily Mail as a whole. I think it’s fairly split gender-wise. It’s kind of what you’d imagine it to be. I think finance still has a problem with getting females interested and excited about it.

Alessia Horwich (03:33):

Do you feel passionate about that?

Angharad Carrick (03:35):

Yeah, I do. And I’ve spoken to. I quite often go into schools and speak to kids and that sort of thing. I think people are more aware of it. Martin Lewis has done so much for consumer and finance journalism, but I think that we’ve got a long way to go. So yeah, I think that’s why it’s so important to be able to sort of take these, what I do now, take quite dull press releases and corporate updates. Why does it matter to people? That’s kind of fundamentally what we do.

Alessia Horwich (04:09):

Yeah. So tell me a bit about your role and what an everyday day looks like for you.

Angharad Carrick (04:14):

I start at seven o’clock. So I am in the office sort of reading through corporate announcements and seeing what’s happened overnight. And that is kind of every single day. And I sort of work out what we’re going to do for the day. Obviously things come and go, but that sort of principle, then I kind of distribute it to various people. I also do a lot of writing. We’re a very, very small team.

Alessia Horwich (04:40):

Give us an idea of timings around that distribution. Does that happen very early on in the day?

Angharad Carrick (04:44):

Very, very early. So usually about 7:30, we’ll kind of know what the plan is for the day. And we work very closely with the Daily Mail paper team. We’re all kind of one team now. So we’ll kind of jump in and some of my stuff will go in the paper and vice versa. So yeah, I mean, most of my day is kind of done by about 11 o’clock. And then from there you write features or you’ll do interviews or meet people. But that kind of early morning stretch is pretty brutal sometimes.

Alessia Horwich (05:17):

We’re here to talk about quotes today and quotes from spokespeople specifically. Why do you need quotes for your pieces?

Angharad Carrick (05:24):

Not everyone wants to hear my take on something. Or very rarely do you read any sort of piece of news where it’s just sentences after sentence of this happened and then this happened and then this happened. You kind of need that context. And quite often spokespeople or experts in the field will be able to give that. So I think it’s about sort of building authority. And if they’re really good quotes, it just spices up the whole piece, I think. If you’ve got something that you can put in a headline or whatever it is, people are far more likely to read something. Sort of pulling maybe a bit emotional or this is definitely going to happen. And without veering into clickbait, I think it does really lend itself well to the types of pieces that we write.

Alessia Horwich (06:14):

Do you think that quotes are specifically relevant for rolling news?

Angharad Carrick (06:17):

I think they work across the board. I think in what we do, it is really important because quite often, I mean, the chunk of what we write is corporate updates.

Alessia Horwich (06:29):

Which can be quite dry.

Angharad Carrick (06:31):

Exactly. And everything that happens in, whether it be sort of political drama that sort of feeds into markets and stuff, you do want people to say their opinion on things. And I think that those sort of quick takes are often. They might not form all of the story, but they might spark something in a journalist’s idea and think, okay, well, let’s take it onto the next level. Let’s speak to that person or whatever. So it’s kind of an ongoing sort of relationship, I think.

Alessia Horwich (07:00):

What do you think the role of a quote is? What job does it have to fulfil to actually be useful to you?

Angharad Carrick (07:06):

Different types of quotes work for different pieces. Quite often, a good quote can offer context. Whether that just be to the journalist that is then put into the piece, those are really, really helpful. I’ll always remember one really good quote that I got from, I can’t remember who from, but I was asking about a tie up between two companies. And quite often we know what we want from a quote and we want someone to say something. And this person said exactly what it was. And it was saying that one company was a thorn in the other side and it just worked perfectly. It completely encapsulated the story. And it’s that sort of thing that you really sort of want. It made it into the headline and I still remember it happened months and months ago. It’s really difficult to sort of say in one sentence kind of, yeah.

Alessia Horwich (08:02):

I mean, is the one sentence thing key? Does it have to be short? Because I’m thinking, obviously you’re talking about different scenarios. So if you want something reactive, you want something really quick that you can just pick up and use. But if it’s something that’s more about moving a piece on or moving a news line on, that could be longer. Is that right?

Angharad Carrick (08:18):

I think there’s a real habit to only give one sentence, which is great because nine times out of 10, only one sentence will make it into a piece. But actually I think sometimes you need a bit of context to why someone is saying what they’re saying in that one sentence. So I often prefer a longer quote, not pages and pages or even kind of paragraphs, but four or five sentences kind of outlining what’s happened or some kind of context. And then the sort of killer couple of sentences. I do think for what we do, it’s really important to have that context. We cover so much and so we are not on top of everything, especially in the kind of corporate side. Do

Alessia Horwich (09:04):

You think PRs forget that a bit sometimes that journalists aren’t across their businesses’ whole background and history and everything?

Angharad Carrick (09:10):

I think so. I think so. I think also the changing nature of journalism has definitely kind of sped that up. Newsrooms are tiny compared to what they used to be. It’s a really difficult time, and I’m sure journalists have said that over many, many years, but we’re stretched thin and we don’t have a paywall. I wouldn’t say we’re chasing clicks, but clicks are very important. And so we need to get up as much as possible that is relevant and interesting to our readers. And so I don’t have the time to spend hours pouring over certain things. So that’s really where I think PR quotes can be really, really helpful because I can just scan it, see if it’s relevant to our readers, write it up and then include a couple of sentences from that quote.

Alessia Horwich (10:01):

What are the main mistakes PRs make when giving you quotes? And I was wondering about over-training, over media training or overchecking through various different things because I know it’s really difficult for PRs because they’ve got all these stakeholders they have to get the sign off from. How do you feel when you get an over-engineered quote?

Angharad Carrick (10:19):

It’s frustrating, but I do understand it. I think it can work in some circumstances. If it’s very obviously self-serving, if it’s someone commenting on something that is completely irrelevant to what they do and they somehow manage to shoehorn it, we’re not going to use it. So that’s a really important thing. And I see it happen more than you’d think. So I mean, those just don’t even get looked at. We get so many emails a day. Those go straight in the bin. Quality over quantity. I think there’s a sort of, we’re still seeing that kind of spray and pray technique where you’re just bamboozling journalists with the amount of information and quotes that you’re sending. And I know that it’s really difficult because you have targets to hit and all of that stuff. But actually taking the time and reading what the journalist writes about and the types of quotes that we use as well.

(11:15):

I think more often than not, we’re going to use a punchy quote. And so it’s kind of a waste of time sending something that says, “And this is why we are so great at blah, blah, blah, because it’s so self-serving and our readers aren’t interested in it.”

Alessia Horwich (11:35):

So it’s got to offer your readers some sort of knowledge that they wouldn’t have otherwise had. It’s also probably needs to be relevant to the industry in which they’re functioning. Is there anything else that goes wrong? I mean, what about reaction times?

Angharad Carrick (11:49):

Nine times out of 10, we want it ASAP. We want it yesterday. We want it quickly. I think within a couple of hours is always ideal if we are approaching you. Quite often we know what we want from a quote, as in we kind of know what we want someone to say. And more often than not, we will allude to what we want from the quote in the question that we send. And I don’t know if this is the case for all journalists, but certainly the way that I do it is I’ve got an idea for a headline or a version of something. And so I will say quite explicitly in an email, if I’m asking for a comment, what do you think of this?

(12:31):

It would be great if that was picked up on and it was sort of reflected in the quote. Obviously, if that’s completely wrong, then it is great if they say, no, no, no, no, you’re completely on the wrong path here. But we kind of know what we want from a quote. And that will depend case by case. It’s not going to be the same every time. But there are themes and I think if you just scan the This is Money website, we’ve got a very clear kind of editorial line. We’re not necessarily going to want sort of quotes that are particularly pro a certain party and a political party that is all pro something or anti-something. So I think just literally spending five minutes before you send a quote is really, really helpful.

Alessia Horwich (13:18):

So look at the language that you are using when you request a quote. See if you can reflect that back in your quote. Check on the website, see what the kind of quotes you’re using are lengthswise. I mean, you can send more you’ve just said. It is helpful for context. What do you think the biggest enemy of a good press quote is?

Angharad Carrick (13:35):

It’s rushing. I think that’s what it is. And I know that I said we expect a fast turnaround, but actually I think we’d much rather wait for a great quote than something quick that is quite dull and not that well thought through or saying something just for the sake of saying something. It’s quality over quantity. And we don’t necessarily need a quote for everything. We want something that differs from what other people are saying or it could have huge kind of repercussions for borrowers or whatever it is. I think not enough people take the time and not enough people read the articles that we write before sending things or pitching things as well.

Alessia Horwich (14:25):

I think one of the things about quotes that I remember from when I used to write about money was that I would often be relying on them as part of my piece. So you’d get your story in the morning and then you’d go off to your sources and they’d say, “Oh, we’ll come back to you by three.” And you’d be waiting. You’d have your little slot in your text for where it was going to go. And then they’d come back and say something very generic or they’d be like, “Oh, actually we don’t want a quote.” And you’d be like, “Ah, now I’ve got, what am I going to do?” So I guess accepting that if you say yes to doing a quote, you need to come up with something vaguely decent or come back with a reason why not and maybe offer something else. But I wondered about bespoke quotes because obviously I think that PRs do have these quotes that they can use and they can kind of send out.

(15:04):

How do you feel about that versus something waiting to get something that is bespoke for you? Do you mind? Does it make much difference if it’s on the same topic and it kind of fits with the subject?

Angharad Carrick (15:15):

I think it kind of depends who it’s from. I think if it’s someone really well known, we are happy for it to not be bespoke. We’re always going to listen to, I don’t know, the CEO of a massive FTSE company. That’s kind of a given. Bespoke quotes are really difficult to get right. And as you say, I think it’s much better to just sort of be sent something so you know what you’re working with rather than going and not quite knowing what’s going to come back because it could be super generic or just go against the entire sort of direction of the piece that you’re writing. Quite often, we will just rely on stuff that’s sent to us. And if we want something bespoke, we’ll ask. This bespoke quotes aren’t that important, I don’t think, unless it’s for a feature, but then it will be us approaching rather than –

Alessia Horwich (16:15):

Yeah, because I was going to say, would it be odd for a PR to come to you and say, “Would you like a quote?” I mean, if you’re rushed, I assume you’d rather just be like, “Here’s a quote we’ve got. Do you want to use it?” Kind of thing.

Angharad Carrick (16:24):

Yeah, exactly. I think very rarely am I offered exclusive quotes.

Alessia Horwich (16:29):

I mean, they could be quite good though for something like budget day maybe.

Angharad Carrick (16:32):

Yes. Yeah. I think I would rather just speak to someone on the phone for that. There is quite an over reliance on sending through written commentary, which is really, really helpful in the morning. And so for corporate updates that we do. But we’re journalists, we like speaking to people. We want to be on the phone. And I know that there’s a real issue with PRs using AI and that sort of thing in the industry. And it’s really important if we haven’t met someone or we’ve not heard of the company that we actually speak to a real person.

Alessia Horwich (17:10):

Is that specifically relevant for. I mean, I want to talk about budget day because I mean, you’re inundated with quotes on budget day. Lots of reaction coming through as the kind of announcements are made. It’s a really difficult day for journalists and PRs to get cut through and journalists to decide what they want to feature. Is setting up time with a spokesperson ahead of that day, someone who you know is going to be able to comment on whatever kind of comes up useful to you?

Angharad Carrick (17:34):

Yes, definitely. The last few budgets, it’s all sort of been trailed. So we kind of know what’s going to come up. And that makes our lives easier because we can set that time up. Thinking back to the last budget, I think all of the people that I quoted, I had set something up beforehand because it’s just too frantic a day. There’s so many deadlines. And they’ll usually be in quite niche spaces. So last budget, I spoke to someone about small businesses and actually got to speak to some small businesses. On the day, you just don’t have time to set that up. And I think more broadly, income tax is going up or whatever it is, you’d be hard pressed to battle your way through the inbox. So I think it is always good to sort of reach out before a big event.

Alessia Horwich (18:30):

What’s the best format for a PR to reach out to you then for that kind of thing? And lead times. Let’s talk about budget day because it’s such a big deal. Is it two weeks ahead and saying, I’ve got time with this person? I mean, how much time do you need?

Angharad Carrick (18:44):

Honestly, the day before or two days before is plenty. I think two weeks we’ll forget about it. The news will have moved on. Something else will have been trailed or they might have. It’s really, really difficult to keep up with it all. So I think a day before is totally fine. Even if it’s just to say, “We’ve got these spokespeople to hand. Do you want to speak to them on the phone or get some written comment?” It’s that classic thing of, “I’m more likely to open your email on budget day if I’ve spoken to you beforehand.” Because we honestly, I think we’ve probably got about a thousand emails on budget day just within a few hours. So it’s a really difficult one.

Alessia Horwich (19:27):

One of the things that I think that our PRs get pushback on is when you guys get a quote and it’s too sanitised and you can’t use it, and it’s really difficult for them, do you have any advice for them that they could use to go back to their clients and say, “This is the reason why we need it to be more expressive or more opinionated or whatever?”

Angharad Carrick (19:46):

You can go back and say, “It’s not going to be used.” If something is boring and too self-serving and sanitised, it’s not going to be used. And actually it’s because they think too much about what they want to get across rather than what they’d like to read themselves. And I think that that is really important because no one really wants a kind of thought leadership quote or whatever it is. I mean, very few people would. So I think it’s about what they themselves would find interesting about the topic. But fundamentally, if it’s too sanitised and too media trained, we just won’t use it.

Alessia Horwich (20:28):

Have you got any other tips for PRs when it comes to quotes? Can they send multiple quotes in one email or?

Angharad Carrick (20:35):

Yeah, I actually think that that’s really, really useful, especially if it’s on a sort of theme. And it works very well. Quite often, PRs will send me, “I’ve spoken to a load of my clients about X, Y, and Z. We think that this is really interesting to your readers. Here are a few quotes.” And actually it might not be that day that we use it, but I can come back to that. And that’s kind of a pitch for me to speak to colleagues of mine and say, “I think that actually this is quite interesting.” I mean, it works from time to time. I think if it’s going to be a daily thing, then perhaps not.

Alessia Horwich (21:15):

No. But that’s what you were talking about over offering, and that’s actually really relevant. How does a PR know when to go in to offer the quote and when not?

Angharad Carrick (21:22):

It’s difficult, but again, it comes down to reading the journalist’s work. Some kind of political drama is happening. Maybe not the best time to pitch or budget day. Don’t pitch something that’s completely. It happens. Oh gosh. It does happen. I can’t believe that happens. So I think it’s just using common sense, I think. If we’re really busy, we just don’t have the time to. So I think periods like summer where we’re really kind of scratching around trying to find things is always, I think, a good time to sort of pitch longer feature type stories.

Alessia Horwich (22:00):

I wondered if there’s anybody who does quotes really well that you can think of that would be a good sort of example to follow for PRs.

Angharad Carrick (22:08):

It’s really obvious, but AJ Bell is fantastic when it comes to quotes. And I think that it’s because they’re consistent. They’re really quick and we’ll put out a daily email. And this is just for corporate financial updates. But every single morning at 9:00 AM or whatever it is, they will write a whole long email. And it’s really, really helpful. It provides that context that I spoke about. It offers really punchy quotes. Dan Coatsworth at AJ Bell in particular is great. He knows how to get a good pun for a headline. All of that sort of basic daily mail stuff that we love. And they’re also really, really good at replying. So if you’ve got a sort of very niche request about a sort of company that no one’s really heard of, they will make an effort to. And if they can’t, they’ll say no. And I think that’s really important.

(23:04):

Rather than sort of stringing us along for a few hours and saying, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’ll get our client to do this.” And then right at the last minute say, “Actually, we can’t.”

Alessia Horwich (23:13):

That’s really quite interesting actually because it’s so much better, isn’t it, to know where you stand? What are three essential things to think about before they send that email?

Angharad Carrick (23:22):

Keep the quotes punchy and make it something that you would remember an hour later, an hour after you’ve sent it. Make sure that you are sending the right quotes to the right publications in the sense that something that works for the FT is not going to work for the Daily Mail or the Telegraph or vice versa. So really know who you’re pitching to, know the publication, and don’t send too much.

Alessia Horwich (23:53):

What is flooding you with quotes? How many is too many?

Angharad Carrick (23:56):

I think any more than two a day is probably too much, especially if it’s quite similar topics too.

Alessia Horwich (24:06):

And I was wondering, do you think that these corporate reports are the results and things like that? Are there things you need most help with?

Angharad Carrick (24:12):

I would say so because they’re very straight down the line. So I think us journalists, we can’t stray into commenting too much. So it’s really important that we do have an authority to say this is what it means and that sort of thing. I think far more than other things that we write about.

Alessia Horwich (24:34):

And do you think that consistently sending you a good quality of quote at a good time is a way to build a relationship with you?

Angharad Carrick (24:42):

Yes, absolutely. But I would say that I much prefer, if the quote is coming from someone that I haven’t used before or it’s a new business or whatever it is, I much prefer to meet people in person just to kind of scope them out, see if they’re a real person and sort of get the vibe of that person. You can tell quite quickly if someone’s going to give you a punchy quote or not. And just having a sort of normal conversation about things I think is really important.

Alessia Horwich (25:14):

Is diversity in spokespeople important to This is Money?

Angharad Carrick (25:18):

I want to say that it’s important, but it is about what they say. I think though that we have got a lot better at putting more diverse spokespeople in front of journalists, but I think that we still have a long way to go, but it is fundamentally about what they have to say.