Festive Press Releases

Last night, after a beast of a day chasing writers, updating editors and making sure every feature had the right pictures in the right folder and that the right department heads had the right information, it would have been nice to switch off, pull a cork and scan Netflix.

Instead I knew I needed to spend an extra hour at my desk selecting items I wanted to include in my own section of The Telegraph’s food Christmas gift guide. As with many writers and editors who have an area they focus on, there were lots of ideas already in my head — but I had taken the precaution of creating a folder in my Gmail for festive press releases which had caught my eye over the last few weeks.

And I must praise to the skies the PRs who had taken the time to include links to hi-res images of their clients’ products — and not just ‘lifestyle’ shots which are never terribly helpful in my opinion. When you’re doing a round-up from several sources, the more consistent the imagery the better. Apologies to the putative stylists out there, but keeping it simple pays off.