In the hot seat:
Anna Ward: News Editor at Estates Gazette
Anna’s Week:
- The week begins on a Friday
- Thursday: press day – deadline is 4pm
- Friday: Digital edition goes live at 6am
- Saturday: Magazine comes out
- Friday / Monday are the best days for pitching stories
- Team meeting at 4pm every Friday where Analysis section (20 pages) and News section (4 pages) discussed. Plus daily news meetings at 9am Monday-Thursday.
- Good day for meetings too. First thing in the morning and circa 4pm also good times for meetings as saves us breaking up the day. So breakfasts and coffees mainly.
- Monday to Wednesday – team meeting at 9am
- Best to pitch afternoon before if want to lobby for story at 9am meeting. On pitching – they really only look at the bigger/timely stories. So deals say around £20m will be a harder sell and the PR will need a really convincing reason – if there isn’t one it isn’t worth pitching at all.
- EG also really appreciates it when PRs work with them on stories, whether that’s giving them an exclusive report with interesting data they can use for the magazine, or a major industry story they give to EG exclusively under embargo with an interview with someone senior.
- The more time they have and the more insight they get on an interesting story the more prominence they can give it in the magazine.
- Daily digital editions go live:
- 7am and 4pm
- Embargoes help plan the schedule
- Special Reports / Features – views/suggestions on major property trends they should investigate or areas that would work for features would also be useful. This rarely happens so would be appreciated.
Themes interested in:
- Deals, moves, companies responding to market dynamics, retail space, and trends across property. Mental health survey and focus too.
Audience and Focus:
- Investors; Occupiers; Agents; Developers; Valuers; Lawyers* Only for adding context/technical details. Plus while we talk to agents they are interested in building their contacts more on the occupier/developer/investors side as they are more difficult to meet.
- Sectors:
- Offices, retail and leisure; industrial, residential
- Regions
- 12 across UK and global
- Technology
- Sustainability
- Future leaders
- Legal
- Radius Data exchange
Top Tips:
- Get about 40 releases a day
- If interested will come back – but do gently follow up the next day if not heard back
- Exclusives are important vs out trade peers and the nationals
Key Team members:
- Editor in Chief – Damian Wild
- Editor – Samantha McClary
- Deputy Editor – Tim Burke (Analysis section for magazine)
- News Editor – Anna Ward (Sustainability, policy, the South East and Ireland)
- Tech Editor – Emily Wright (Supplements)
- London Editor – Louise Dransfield (London and Offices market)
- Professional and Legal Editor – Sarah Jackman
- Jess Harold – Deputy and writes the diary
- Senior Reporter – Pui-Guan Man (Retail, leisure, hotels, logistics, student accomodation, Scotland)
- Residential Reporter – Emma Rosser (Residential)
- Reporter – Lucy Anderson (Property technology, international markets, talent/women in business, and the north of England)
- Head of Research – James Child (Retail and Industrials)
- Senior Analyst – Graham Shone (Writes Property in Numbers blog and edits quarterly London Office Market Analysis – LOMA)
- Question Time – Events Team
