A Strong Dose Of Common Sense

It’s easy, as a journalist, to get so caught up in the process of covering a story of the magnitude of Queen Elizabeth’s death that everything else just vanishes. Yet, this week on the Telegraph’s “leader board” of news that readers were clicking on, I have been astonished to see that there is a strong appetite for other subjects.

That’s not to say the long months of preparation for ‘Operation London Bridge’ weren’t needed; it was a matter of great pride to work alongside colleagues on special supplements celebrating the late Queen’s life. 

But newspapers will always have certain protocols for such a huge news story – there are no such protocols for other industries, such as PR. Please forgive my colleagues and I for a rare moment of laughter when on Friday morning, deep in discussions on which commemorative features to put where, I read out an email saying: “Dear Lisa, How are you, I hope you’re having a great week so far? To celebrate World ********* Day on 16th September would you be interested in”…

From one extreme to the other, a writer friend quipped that a cocktail evening she was due to attend had been cancelled “out of respect”, and I’ve just had a note postponing a restaurant dinner due to take place a short while after the state funeral next week, which also seemed strange.

Who’s right? Who’s wrong? And does it matter? The writer who wanted to gather up the most bonkers postponements was headed off but it could have been printed… So back to protocol (in its broadest sense). I think a strong dose of common sense is required and perhaps a call to a trusted journalist friend to find out which tone to strike. No one is probably going to devote much attention or resources to a – frankly – made-up day when our days are marked by officialdom right now. But similarly, there is a desire to read about subjects other than royalty. They just need to be meaningful and have broad appeal.