How to pitch to the Times’ London section with Sidonie Wilson

Alessia Horwich (00:07):

Welcome to On the Rox, a podcast from Roxill Media that asks some of the top journalists in the UK for their solutions to problems which face PRs daily. We know there’s not a one size fits all way of communicating with journalists, so we’re going straight to the editors in the newsroom to ask them how they like to work with PRs and how best 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 to pitch to the London section at the Times with senior commissioning editor Sidonie Wilson. Sidonie, we haven’t actually spoken since you left the weekend section.

Sidonie Wilson (00:42):

Yes.

Alessia Horwich (00:43):

And now you’re on London. But before we actually talk about London, do you want to tell me a little bit about… Well, let’s just recap your career a little bit for our listeners. How have you got to be a senior commissioning editor at the Times?

Sidonie Wilson (00:54):

It’s been about three months, I think, since I moved. I’ve been at the Times for just over five years and I joined and it’s actually technically my first full-time job in journalism. I used to be in PR in a fashion PR agency, which no longer exists sadly, but it was sort of the good days of PR. So that kind of led into four or five years of PR, which

Alessia Horwich (01:20):

You just said the good days of PR. I mean, what does that mean? I

Sidonie Wilson (01:22):

Don’t know. It felt quite ab fab. I don’t know if it was because I was also a lot younger and it was my first full-time job in London. I mean, it was just a lot of going out and a lot of late nights and loads of events and Fashion Week felt like it came around basically six times a year, which it essentially did. I mean, killing yourself over it at the same time, which I felt like I could because I was 22 or something. And everyone just, it was such a good vibe. It was really hard work, but I had made some fantastic friends from it. It was really fun. And yeah, I mean, I worked on crazy brands. I’ve had amazing experiences and such good stories, which I’m saving up hopefully for a book at some point.

Alessia Horwich (02:08):

But then you saw the other side

Sidonie Wilson (02:10):

Yeah, that is true.

Alessia Horwich (02:12):

And you were lusting after it.

Sidonie Wilson (02:13):

Exactly. Yeah. So I left quite suddenly and I pursued a master’s in fashion journalism at St. Martin’s, which kind of at the time felt like my only way to kind of cross that bridge into the other world. A world of which I was very much a part of because as you know, being a PR, you were tapping up every editor everywhere all the time anyway. So I had all those connections, but it was just about sort of changing people’s perception of who I was and how I wanted to be sort of seen. So then I kind of managed to get every publication on my CV very quickly, which was great. When I finished my master’s, we had the pandemic, which was terrible timing, terrible timing to leave a full-time job. I was doing lots of freelance work.

(03:02):

I was doing some freelance fashion finder at Daily Mail. I was sort of doing some stuff for Stylist and Elle. And during that time I essentially, you just badgered everyone at the Times because I did a few weeks of work experience and then as soon as you get to know the editors and you make yourself known that you’re very keen and you will do anything and you say yes to everything including some mad things like styling. I was styling lots of Times magazine cover shoots over the pandemic because I was the only one left in London at the time. And I was like, I don’t know what I’m doing, but –

Alessia Horwich (03:45):

Who was it that gave you those gigs?

Sidonie Wilson (03:46):

Nicola Jeal.

Alessia Horwich (03:47):

Nicola Jeal,

Sidonie Wilson (03:48):

Yeah. Obviously. She’d call up and she’d be like, “Sidonie, can you… ” And I was like, “Yeah.” And then I’d sort of work out how to do it. Always yes, as you know. I sort of work out how to do it afterwards. So I think that sort of persistence but also I don’t know if it’s confidence or just hard work ethic sort of helped get me notice. January 2021, I think this opportunity came up where someone left on the weekend desk and because I’d sort of been around and done a few things, I guess they have me in their mind. So I joined the team in March 2021. I did about five years on the weekend desk.

Alessia Horwich (04:24):

How is London different to Weekend?

Sidonie Wilson (04:26):

Well, first and foremost, it’s digi only.

(04:29):

So it’s very different going from a print section. Of course, The Times, Sunday Times, we are Digi First across the board. Have to get that in there. However, it takes a long time for these things to really change and adapt. And the weekend section and other print sections have to get an issue out every week or whatever it is daily if it’s T2. So it’s very different. So this opportunity came up earlier this year because Andy Silvester, who’s the editor who started the section about a year and a half ago I think now, he was

Alessia Horwich (05:07):

And he’s the former editor of City AM.

Sidonie Wilson (05:09):

Yes, exactly. He was brought over and he sort of start this new section.

Alessia Horwich (05:13):

Yeah. Do you know why The Times have started the London section?

Sidonie Wilson (05:18):

The main reason why we’ve done it is because for such a long time we have been, we as in the Times and Sunday Times, have been sort of nervous about being too London centric. It happens across news, it happens across features, et cetera. We’re a UK publication and we have to make sure that we are serving all of our readers. However, we are very aware of the fact that we have a large portion of our readers who are London based and therefore we want to make sure really that we are sort of serving those readers. But one of the main other parts of it is pulling in news subscribers all the time. So we’re kind of a bit of a split focus. We’re sort of filling a bit of a gap in London news and features, which we’re one of the first nationals to be doing.

(06:04):

So there’s also that.

Alessia Horwich (06:05):

How’s that gap happened? I mean, we know. I did. I’m trying to make you spell it out. I mean, really was it like the standards demise has been seen as an opportunity for the Times?

Sidonie Wilson (06:17):

It’s not directly linked.

Alessia Horwich (06:18):

No.

Sidonie Wilson (06:19):

But it would be difficult to say

Alessia Horwich (06:22):

Would you be doing it though if the Standard was still going?

Sidonie Wilson (06:23):

I think it’s been going on a long time before what’s happened with the Standards happened. We’ve always been talking about this. Always saying, oh no, this is too London centric, blah, blah, blah. But people want that sort of more localised news.

Alessia Horwich (06:39):

Yeah, because you having a high proportion of London readers is not a new thing at all.

Sidonie Wilson (06:41):

No, exactly. Exactly. And you’re still going to get the people commenting below the line who are saying, oh, hello, people live outside the M25. However, which we do know, but this is kind of feeding into that sort of the large portion of people who are within the M25 and therefore are subscribers. But yeah, of course the landscape is ever changing and unfortunately shrinking. And in terms of having that sort of more capital city focused news features, things like that, it’s needed. People want that. And we’re capital city for a reason. We’ve got that heart of culture. You’ve got the news as well. You’ve got everything from food, politics. People are tuned in whether you live here or not.

Alessia Horwich (07:28):

Tell me about who you guys are thinking about when you’re commissioning, because obviously the demographics of London are broad. How do you approach that?

Sidonie Wilson (07:37):

Yeah, it’s a tricky one. I think, like you said, it’s very broad. And I think I’ve sort of tried to transition my mind, which has just come from weekend knowing what our demographic was, which was I think the average age might have been somewhere between 50 and 70 of our reader. There’s a huge focus at the moment generally just pulling in younger readers. So that is where we are tapped into, but that’s not to say that we’re kind of ostracising everyone else. So I’d say slightly working professionals, maybe it’s sort of 30 to 50 years old and even younger obviously. But it is a hard one because it is so broad and we’re trying to tap into kind of the excitement, the buzziness, the new openings, what’s going on, but also covering the really important topics as well.

Alessia Horwich (08:27):

Yeah. Tell me more about the topics you are covering.

Sidonie Wilson (08:31):

Tricky. A bit of everything.

Alessia Horwich (08:33):

I mean, you just said to me when you arrived, you were thinking about covering train delays.

Sidonie Wilson (08:37):

Yes. Yeah.

Alessia Horwich (08:39):

But I’ve also seen you went to that great new pool in Canary Wharf recently.

Sidonie Wilson (08:42):

Yeah, exactly. So anything like that, that’s so topical, the new pool, because everyone’s obsessed with sort of having… It covers wellness, it covers London openings, it covers a bit of everything. It’s also property and development. What’s happening at Canary Wharf is hugely exciting in terms of London’s development. And we cover quite a lot that’s going on there anyway. So this is just kind of like a side of that, but also it’s a heat wave. Everyone’s obsessed with trying to cool off in the city all the time. So it taps into things and that piece incidentally did really well. I think it got something like 25,000 reads, which is okay, it’s good. It’s in the right colour, which is blue. It’s not in the red. It’s pretty good going. Anything above 5,000 is pretty good.

Alessia Horwich (09:30):

What other type of topics are blue topics?

Sidonie Wilson (09:33):

It’s really interesting because a lot of things surprise you. I think one thing that we do really well, which we’re tapping into a lot of sort of freelancers for is quite niche sort of in – depth sort of articles about things that are going on in London. So I’m trying to think. So for example, there was a piece that someone did for us about where do all the barges, the rubbish barges go in London. It flew. It did amazingly. Yeah. I mean, who doesn’t want to read about that?

Alessia Horwich (10:03):

I do not know the answer to that.

Sidonie Wilson (10:04):

Yeah. I mean, definitely read it. It’s fascinating. So things like that, not necessarily pegged to a time or sort of what’s going on, but things like that which is slightly more in depth are really interesting. What has been interesting is finding out how things do and don’t work. Something quite simple. Obviously we cover a lot of food. I edited food on weekends, so it’s been an easy transition because I’m already across kind of all food things and it’s great because so much of the stuff I was pitched before or came across on weekend was too London centric. So now so much more opportunity to be able to cover in London, which is great. But in terms of food, something quite simple like new restaurant openings, which we do every month. And I think it started its life as something quite SEO driven, like seven new restaurants to book in London next month.

(10:58):

We actually found it wasn’t performing as well as it might have. So we’ve slightly tried a couple of times changing how that works. And similarly with what’s on pieces. So we used to do, like Sheer Luxe do them, a lot of the Londons, digital sites do them, what’s on this weekend, that kind of thing. Again, just didn’t perform at all. So whether that’s something that we might come back to, we were sort of having these sort of weekly catch ups in terms of how these are doing. We though, well, we’ll stop that for now.

(11:29):

And with the restaurants, we’ll just slightly reframe it. So at the moment we’re trying sort of the food team or our editor’s guide to what we’re excited about in the food world. So instead of seven new restaurants to see, it’s what is Tony, what is Hannah, what’s Andy, what am I looking forward to booking next month

Alessia Horwich (11:48):

Yeah, we’re seeing a lot of that across every publication is the reframing for the personal expert angle.

Sidonie Wilson (11:53):

Well, personal expert angle is it just does so much

Alessia Horwich (11:58):

What’s the LLM zero click behaviour situation?

Sidonie Wilson (11:59):

Exactly. And same with, so for example, this week we did a Lidos listing, which was, I mean, it feels very obvious, but actually it was an SEO request. They said to me, everyone’s searching which Lidos to go to in London, obviously due to the heat wave. And I was like, “Great. Well, we’ll do a listing that’s really easy.” But actually how I slightly reframed it was I though, “Well, I could obviously do this with my eyes closed, but I’ll commission a freelancer to do it instead. Someone who is very into cold water swimming and it can be more of a first person sort of intro into it and expert led piece, which has sort of made it do much better than if we’d just done seven Lidos to go to in London.”

Alessia Horwich (12:43):

Gosh, is this like the death of the traditional roundup?

Sidonie Wilson (12:46):

It’s definitely changing sort of listicles, I think, but it’s not everyone’s doing it. But it’s a good thing. I think everything’s changing everywhere all the time. We need to be able to adapt.

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Alessia Horwich (13:50):

Would you say that because you’re a new section, you’re still finding the boundaries of where you begin and where other things start? I mean, I would see that if I were a PR as an opportunity to try out stories on you and be like, “Well, how about this one? This is quite interesting. This might work for you. ” Or would that put you off?

Sidonie Wilson (14:08):

No, absolutely. Yeah. We are definitely still figuring out how things work and what works. And I always say, “If you’ve got something, just come to me and we’ll have a chat.” And to be honest, a lot of the time I’ll say, “This isn’t quite right for us, but this would work for weekend T2 style. And therefore I will sort of loop them in or if I have time, I’ll write up for them.” So yeah, absolutely. I think it’s really important to kind of keep coming to us with things. If you have people that you have good relationships with at certain publications, just go to them with all of the information and ask. Because when it comes down to it, we’re all humans.

(14:48):

I’m obviously going to be interested in a specific story or lead and I’m going to want to find the best place for that. And I’m probably going to want that to be within the times. So whether or not it’s the right thing for London, I think just come, if you know me or if you build a relationship with me, then come to me with the information and then we can kind of have that conversation or you can leave it up to us. I think unless you’re sure, you know what I mean? Unless you’re completely sure that you’re pitching to exactly the right section with the right… And obviously there’s specific slots across all the paper.

Alessia Horwich (15:20):

Let’s talk about regular slots on London actually.

Sidonie Wilson (15:23):

Okay.

Alessia Horwich (15:23):

So do you have any?

Sidonie Wilson (15:24):

We have a few knocking around. This is something I want to do more of as well, but it’s slightly still finding my feet. I’ve started something called the London Set, which is a weekly sort of insider’s guide to London. Whether it not it’s a neighbourhood guide or it might be sort of themed. It started off as a foodie section and I’m speaking to kind of chefs, hospitality, insiders, anyone sort of like that to give me their, whether it’s their sort of favourite Italian restaurants in London or Places with Terraces. It’s gone a little bit broader now because I actually did Manolo Blahnik yesterday. And I’ve also done Anya Hindmarch. So it’s a real insider’s guide.

Alessia Horwich (16:16):

Does it have to be someone as famous as those two?

Sidonie Wilson (16:18):

No. And like I said, with food, with chefs, I’m sort of quite excited by spotlighting people who are lesser known or rising talent or things like that. And it might be… Yeah, not at all. And also I need something every week if you know what I mean. And that’s really easy because it gets sort of seven to nine of their recommendations, a paragraph on each and then I’ll write up an intro about them and what they’re doing. Obviously a lot of stuff comes sort of attached or pegged to something they’re promoting, which we can do in sort of a less obvious way. But no, that’s really good. And at the moment that’s been doing pretty well. And actually the neighbourhood guides have been doing a bit better. So I think like Ravinder Bhogal did her guide to Marlbone and that did really well, which is nice.

Alessia Horwich (17:06):

When are you commissioning them? When should an email pitch for one of those hit your inbox?

Sidonie Wilson (17:12):

Anytime really. I know that’s unhelpful. And that’s really changed because when I was on weekend, it was like never on print day. But also never on any other day of the week because I didn’t have any time. Whereas now there isn’t really a bad time.

Alessia Horwich (17:27):

How much content are you realistically aiming for per day?

Sidonie Wilson (17:31):

We have about two things going up a day. Two, three things going up a day. Yeah, probably about nine averaging nine a week. But we don’t think we could do any more at the moment with just being the two of us. I do sometimes write, but often we’re editing, commissioning, and there’s only so much we can get through. And the main thing is, which you’re probably going to ask me about next, is feeding into our newsletter.

Alessia Horwich (17:54):

I am going to ask you about that next.

Sidonie Wilson (17:56):

Anticipation out of that.

Alessia Horwich (17:58):

Tell me about it. Tell me about this London newsletter.

Sidonie Wilson (18:00):

So we have a newsletter that goes out every Wednesday. It’s doing really well. I think we’re on just under 30,000.

Alessia Horwich (18:06):

I mean, that’s huge, isn’t it?

Sidonie Wilson (18:07):

Well, considering it’s so new. I think something like food is on 80,000 food and drink. Obviously the daily briefing is on like 500,000, but then that is the main one. So it’s doing well. It’s quite buzzy, it’s snappy, but the same with any newsletter. It’s really sort of going feeding that stuff directly to our subscribers.

Alessia Horwich (18:31):

What kind of PR involvement do you need with it? I mean, does it have original content in it?

Sidonie Wilson (18:36):

It does. Yeah. It has a bit of both. Not a huge amount. And there probably isn’t much scope for sort of PR involvement apart from we have sort of a couple of what’s on slots. There are opportunities that might be sort of a more sort of review basis as well, but not every week. We also have a biweekly feature that I put up every Friday, sorry, every other Friday. And it’s a couple of cocktail experts who do a bit of a social SOS. It’s called Ask the London Experts, which is really, really great. And they’re sort of doing – One of

Alessia Horwich (19:13):

The ones, I can’t remember what it was, like taking your family out. Oh, it was Father’s Day.

Sidonie Wilson (19:17):

Father’s Day. Yeah.

Alessia Horwich (19:18):

But the two recommendations were places I’d never really considered at all.

Sidonie Wilson (19:21):

Yeah. So they are very tuned in to the industry, which is fantastic. And so for example, that week we’ll obviously put them into the newsletter. So it kind of changes, but there is some opportunity.

Alessia Horwich (19:34):

I mean, if you’re a PR, is it sign up and get it every week and have a seat what you’re doing?

Sidonie Wilson (19:39):

Absolutely.

Alessia Horwich (19:39):

And then try and tune

Sidonie Wilson (19:40):

It. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

Alessia Horwich (19:41):

I mean, if somebody wants to get to your attention, I mean, it’s also a question about relationship building, about you personally. What is the best strategy for pitching? What does that email need to look like? Is it an email? Is it a phone call? I assume not. And then you personally, I remember you telling me that you used to do exercise classes with PRs. Yeah. I mean, how has your relationship with PRs evolved since then? That ages ago.

Sidonie Wilson (20:06):

Email wise, snappy. Always short and nappy. Subject line, what grabs my attention? So always looking for exclusivity, right? So if it’s invite, but it’s something that I know that it’s something we can write up. Whether it’s the name of a celebrity or famous person or a chef in the subject line or the word exclusive always helps. I think especially I personally haven’t started doing this, but I do know that we are being encouraged to use AI, specifically Gemini, to be sorting through our emails. So if you are putting those words in, I can imagine that we would be able to search for those words and therefore filter into the things that would be interesting. In terms of within the email, again, same rules apply. And this is one thing that I find amazing. The lack of information does surprise me. That I think is such a key thing.

(20:59):

I don’t really want to get into sort of a hundred email exchange over something, which does happen a lot of the time. So just making sure that all of the really key information’s in there. Think like a journalist, like basics, right? Who, what, where, and why. Give me all of those details so I have it so I can then think how and if I want to do that. I know this sounds sort of highly self important, but just make it as easy as possible for us because we don’t want to be clicking on something to open something or whatever it is. If I see sort of a WeTransfer link, I’m just like, “Oh God, just give me a screenshot in the bottom of the email for now.” I will then, I think because we don’t deal with pictures ourselves, we have picture editors do that, which is fantastic.

(21:45):

But I don’t want to go through a WeTransfer link to have to see something. But the visual side of things is really important.

Alessia Horwich (21:50):

Yeah. What about video?

Sidonie Wilson (21:52):

Yeah. Well, video’s really important as well, but we have our own sort of in – house video team who are covering everything. So I think in terms of we’re creating a lot of original content, but in terms of providing video, I know that we can’t embed Instagram links into that sort of thing, but I do think there is an appetite for video. It just depends on what it is.

Alessia Horwich (22:12):

So offer it up, explain briefly what it is.

Sidonie Wilson (22:14):

I think definitely if you’ve got it. Yeah, of course. And that sort of thing might fit better if it’s like an interview or with someone or it’s something that sort of comes along. The main problem is that a lot of things tend to come through brands promoting things, which is great because it’s how we get a lot of our interviews generally. I mean, I’m talking more generally here, less about London, but it still stands. And the main thing is not being too advertorial. Of course. So it’s very relevant to things like the London set because obviously it’s fantastic we have an interview with Manolo or whoever it is and their recommendations, but you don’t want it to seem sort of too advertising basically. Yeah. But yeah, it is really hard. I think you’ve got to remember that journalists are receiving sort of around 200 emails a day.

Alessia Horwich (23:00):

We actually had a journalist recently who said she got four a minute.

Sidonie Wilson (23:04):

Yeah, that is impressive and also very possible.

Alessia Horwich (23:08):

I mean on average, but yeah.

Sidonie Wilson (23:09):

Yeah, no, that does. I mean, it makes me nervous knowing that I’m going to spend an hour not looking at my emails now because you miss things and we can only sort of keep on top of so many things. And obviously there’s the old age debate of how many times do you follow up?

Alessia Horwich (23:25):

What’s your take?

Sidonie Wilson (23:27):

I think no more than two or three, honestly. I think that’s what I was taught back in the day and I don’t know if it’s changed.

Alessia Horwich (23:32):

It’s so funny because everyone has a different answer to this basically. I mean it’s

Sidonie Wilson (23:35):

Impossible. I know. The thing is I do miss things and sometimes – But I mean two or three

Alessia Horwich (23:39):

Is a lot basically.

Sidonie Wilson (23:41):

Yeah, I would definitely, I stick to two. When I was a PR, I would’ve stuck to two. Three is okay if it’s like, I don’t know. Also, if people have out of offices on, just please pay attention because if you come back and you see people, this happens so much, people chasing whilst you’re still off. I know it’s difficult because it’s the assumption that PR should be keeping on top of where journalists are all the time and that’s not necessarily true, but there’s an element of if I come back and I’ve got X amount of emails to go through and I see five from one person. It’s like, hello. Yeah. So it’s a tricky one. And I also, this probably changes person to person, but I can’t stand Instagram follow up.

Alessia Horwich (24:21):

DMs. Yeah, fine.

Sidonie Wilson (24:23):

What I don’t mind is I get a lot of DMs and if it’s someone who’s sort of reaching out and they haven’t got my email, I don’t mind that at all. And I say like, “Of course, please send it to my email.” Well,

Alessia Horwich (24:36):

That wouldn’t happen for a Roxhill client.

Sidonie Wilson (24:38):

Well exactly.

Alessia Horwich (24:42):

We’ve got the database, we’ve got your email. There’s absolutely no excuses. Sidonie, thanks so much for kind of telling us about London. But at the end, we like to just kind of sum up. If you were a PR, well, you’re revising a PR today, what are the three pieces of essential advice you would give them about the Times London section?

Sidonie Wilson (24:56):

Exclusivity.

Alessia Horwich (24:57):

Okay.

Sidonie Wilson (24:58):

I know that kind of goes across everyone, but especially us because London’s sort of the hub of it. There’s so much going on all the time, but it’s about being sort of in the know and we want to be providing that. But also sort of in depth/behind the scenes access. Like I said, the barge is not a particularly sexy example, but –

Alessia Horwich (25:21):

Well, also the magazine did the super sewer, didn’t it? Ages ago with Steve Bleach. And I mean, that was massive for them and it’s the same sort of thing.

Sidonie Wilson (25:29):

Well, it is. It doesn’t necessarily have to be sort of the sexy things like the celebrities and the chefs. That’s also really important. But it’s that sort of insider knowledge or access really that’s going to sort of draw us in. And what else? I guess just something unique that a national can’t cover. So I think it’s going to be something where it’s not just, for example, it’s not just a chef that’s based in London that’s doing something. It’s sort of, is there a trend that’s sort of very sort of London centric? Is there something sort of happening within that industry? Hospitality, there’s so much going on all the time. Have you got something which you can provide someone with a really interesting standpoint? That sort of thing. So I guess it’s about trying to think of things a bit more in depth, but also in sort of a more unique, sort of exclusive way.

(26:28):

A question I get asked all the time is only online. Yes, we’re a digital platform. However, we do still feed into print and there’s not really any rhyme or reason to that. And that kind of just depends on what it is and on the day. And a lot of our stuff will end up in the newspages, especially if it’s something a bit, sort of a Friday for Saturday, something a bit fun. Something on page three, which is it could be foodie related or a bit fun or the Sea Lanes thing, something like that. So stuff does still end up in print, but it’s obviously not a given. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks for having me.